Shock Mitigation for the Human on High Speed Craft: Development of an Impact Injury Design Rule

摘要

Occupants of U.S. Special Operations high speed craft are exposed to severe and repeated shock loads during operation in heavy seas, leading to an alarming incidence of reported chronic and acute musculoskeletal injuries. Traditional craft design rules for craft seakeeping qualities are assumed to account for spinal impact injury during the acquisition process. Supplemental design rules, based on spinal impact injury models, are being evaluated in an effort to reduce the incidence of injury. NSWC-PC and its academic partner, the University of Virginia Center for Applied Biomechanics, have identified several supplemental models that show promise, and have performed an initial evaluation of their performance by applying them to conventional and suspension seat acceleration data. The rationale, method, and initial results of this comparative evaluation are presented.