Investigation of Composite Materials for Manikin Skeletal Components, Small Business Innovation Research Phase 1

摘要

The first part of this effort involved analyzing 50th percentile Hybrid III and human femoral bone properties for use in the design of a composite femur. Next, a prototype composite femur was fabricated. The prototype femur consisted of a laminated shaft of 22 ply graphite-epoxy and the knee joint was machined from a block of short fiberglass-reinforced thermoplastic. The hip joint assembly was composed of a titanium alloy neck, an aluminum bronze ball and a stainless steel retaining flange. A comprehensive testing study was conducted and the results indicated that the strength of the composite femur exceeded that of the Hybrid III and human femurs. The prototype composite femur weighed 3.9 lbs, which is much closer to the weight of the human femur which is approximately 2.0 lbs than the weight of the Hybrid III femur which is 12.5 lbs. Keywords: Manikin; Composite; Femur bones; Fabrication; Laminates; Mannequins; Human factors engineering. (JES)