Experimental Injury Biomechanics of the Pediatric Extremities and Pelvis

The paucity of pediatric postmortem human subjects (PMHS) for biomechanical research has led to the development of biofidelity requirements and injury assessment reference values (IARVs) for pediatric anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs) through geometrical scaling of adult PMHS data. Geometrical scaling relies on the assumption of geometrical similarity between the adult and child and does not account for any differences in tissue material properties. Attempts have been made to improve the accuracy of the scaled responses and IARVs by also accounting for the difference in Young's modulus between adult and pediatric bone (Irwin and Mertz 1997; van Ratingen et al. 1997; Mertz et al. 2001; Ivarsson et al. 2004a, b). However, the development of more biofidelic pediatric ATDs and accurate IARVs requires access to validation data that do not rely on the assumptions and simplifications associated with scaling. Access to accurate data from testing of pediatric tissues and anatomical structures would also facilitate the development of computational models for simulation of the response and injury of pediatric subjects in various loading situations.