A small infant dummy has been developed, known as the Aprica 2.5 kg infant dummy. The basic dimensions of the dummy were obtained from direct measurements of newborns. The dummy is segmented according to conventional cut planes at the principal joints. The neck of the dummy has been designed to model the approximate stiffness of a newborn. Selected biomechanical testing has been conducted on the dummy to evaluate its response relative to scaled response corridors. The head response requires some stiffening, the neck response is within the scaled corridors, as is the abdomen impact response. The chest response requires a greater amount of damping.
The new, infant dummy has been used in a number of selected drop tests and shaking tests to evaluate head accelerations under inertial loading and impact loading. Violent shaking of the Aprica dummy generated much high angular acceleration than has been previously reported.