THE EFFECT OF HELMET INERTIAL PROPERTIES ON MALE AND FEMALE HEAD RESPONSE DURING +Gz IMPACT ACCELERATIONS

摘要

As women become increasingly integrated into Air Force combat missions, there is a potential to see an increase in the number of emergency ejections with females. Since every ejection is associated with a risk of injury, and current risk assessment methods are based on primarily male data, the need exists to investigate the injury potential of female crewmembers during cockpit ejection. These injuries can be extremely debilitating and even fatal. Of the 355 ACES II in-envelope ejections (aircraft system failures not included) from 1978 to 1997, 58 ejections involved major or fatal injuries. Additional concern is focused on the effect the catapult phase of ejection will have on aircrew while wearing some form of a helmet-mounted system (HMS) [1,2,5,6,15-19]. The potential for neck injury may increase due to the increase in dynamic forces generated in the cervical spine as a result of the change in helmet inertial properties including weight, center-of-gravity (Cg), and moment-of-inertia (MOI).