The Human Thoracic Surrogate (HTS) is a newly developed physical model, engineered to allow assessment of human injury. The HTS was conceived principally to quantify Primary Blast Injury (PBI) and measure the effectiveness of mitigation strategies, including Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) concepts.
The HTS is designed to function as an anatomically correct mannequin incorporating a range of sensors selected to facilitate injury scoring. This injury scoring capability is paramount when conducting military human survivability and protection studies.
In response to the increased likelihood of military and civilian personnel incurring PBI, Adelaide T&E Systems has been working with Australia’s Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) to incrementally develop suitable surrogate technology to assess levels of PBI and the effectiveness of PPE concepts. The increase in risk of PBI is a consequence of the sharp rise in the use of the improvised explosive device (IED) and the emergence of military enhanced blast munitions.
The HTS is the first anatomically accurate, biofidelic and re-usable human thoracic model. As such, it is well suited to assessing the protection efficacy of actual protective garments and equipments (most other surrogates are not human in shape). The synthetic materials developed to represent the various soft tissues within the HTS (e.g. muscles, organs etc) have similar physical characteristics to real human tissues, although do not degrade with time or vary significantly with temperature (as do gelatin based tissue simulants). By careful design, selection of materials, and testing, the response of the HTS to external loading is well correlated with human response.
This third generation HTS model is dimensionally representative of the 50th percentile US Warfighter, and has been developed with complete Computer Aided Design (CAD) to facilitate the manufacture of all moulds and associated tooling. This scientific approach to manufacturing yields extremely accurate and consistent physical models whilst allowing the implementation of Finite Element Analysis (FEA).
The HTS is compatible with the Hybrid III Crash Test Dummy head and neck (allowing the user to measure the effectiveness of head and neck PPE on the same physical model). The HTS assembly includes a spinal column (with all vertebrae), rib cage assembly, lungs, abdominal organ block and an exterior skin/soft tissue covering that can be removed to allow replacement or substitution of sensors and components. A dynamic HTS mounting system has also been engineered to allow movement under blast loading and vital instrumentation cable protection.
The HTS uses loadcells, accelerometers and pressure gauges to facilitate injury scoring. If used, accelerometers and loadcells within the Hybrid III Crash Test Dummy head and neck are electrically connected to the HTS via a wiring loom located within the spinal column. A custom 6-axis accelerometer cube is positioned at the rear of T6 vertebrae and also connects to the wiring loom within the spinal column. Additional accelerometers are located on the sternum and ribs, and pressure gauges on the sternum and lungs complete the sensor suite. Outputs from the sensor suite are used to generate injury scoring for up to six published injury criteria. |
