The shoulder complex has low priority in the development of frontal impact crash test dummies and Human Body Models. It is rarely exposed to injuries in frontal collisions but it does influence belt interaction and, as such, the thorax compression and head kinematics. Therefore, this study establishes response requirements for the shoulder complex in terms of range of motion and stiffness.

Six male volunteers were seated and belted, with minimum belt‐clavicle interaction, and shoulders were statically loaded with increasing load;​ 0 ̶ 200 N/shoulder. Shoulders were pulled straight forward, forwardupward, upward and rearward. Three repetitions per direction were carried out.

Resultant shoulder range of motion, at maximum loads, ranged from 44 to 73 mm. The volunteers provided measurements with reasonable repeatability.

The applied loads were lower than those commonly seen in frontal crashes;​ however, the shoulder is highly mobile and its response is largely dependent on muscle characteristics. As such, these studies of volunteer responses may be complimentary to tests with post mortem human subjects. Also, the volunteers curved their spines only slightly in these tests. Hence, shoulder motion was successfully isolated and results reflect pure shoulder relative to chest motions. As such the data are suitable for dummy and Human Body Model evaluations.