As part of a continuing study of thoracic injury resulting from side impact loading, the interrelationships between subject age, various kinematic parameters characterizing the impact, and injury severity were investigated in data from a series of 30 cadaver tests.
These 30 tests include, in addition to the tests previously reported by the authors, sled tests conducted by the University of Heidelberg and car crash tests performed by ONSER. These new data expand the range of subject age to 67 years.
Two propositions are examined in this analysis. The first being: Can mechanical response measures partition side impact injuries into different categories? And the second being: Can a continuous function be constructed that can accurately predict a dependent injury severity variable given the various response variables available?
With regard to the first proposition, it is shown that by using any of a number of kinematic variables the present data can be easily partitioned into two classes consisting of those injuries of an AIS 80 severity of four and greater and those of AIS 80 three and less. For the second proposition, peak acceleration of the struck side rib along with age proved the best in predicting a new injury variable, fatality rate, which is a function of two highest AIS values in the body region. Age was a needed explanatory variable in all cases.