The effects of obesity on occupant injury risk in frontal impact: a computer modeling approach

Obesity is a condition that affects about 40% of US adults, and people with disabilities have a higher incidence of obesity than able-bodied individuals. Motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) are the number one cause of death in individuals under the age of 34 in the US, and people who ride in vehicles while seated in their wheelchairs are at increased risk of injury compared to people who ride in the automotive seat. Obese occupants appear to have a different risk of injury in MVCs than non-obese individuals. To reduce the risk of injury to obese occupants it is necessary to further understand the injury mechanisms to obese individuals in frontal MVCs. The purpose of this research was to investigate the mechanisms of injury and injury risk to obese occupants and obese wheelchair-seated occupants in frontal impact. Three full body occupant models were created to investigate the effects of increased mass, changes in obese torso mechanical response and geometry, and a combination of mass and torso changes on occupant injury risk. To investigate the effects of obesity on wheelchair-seated occupants a wheelchair/occupant model was created and validated. Parametric studies were used on all the models to investigate injury risk in frontal impact. The results show that increased mass is the most significant factor leading to injury for obese occupants. The differences in torso mechanical response and geometry as a result of increased adipose tissue in obese occupants, do not significantly affect the injury risk of obese occupants. Changes in the obese torso coupled with increased mass cause increased pelvis and chest excursion which results in increased risk of lower extremity injury. As BMI increases in wheelchair-seated occupants the risk of lower extremity injury increases, and obese wheelchair-seated occupants have a higher risk of injury to the lower extremities than obese non wheelchair-seated occupants. This research suggests that the reduction in injuries to certain body regions reported in the literature are not due to a "cushion effect," but are more likely due to altered occupant kinematics that transfer load from the upper body to the lower extremities

Advanced information processing system: Hosting of advanced guidance, navigation and control algorithms on AIPS using ASTER

This program demonstrated the integration of a number of technologies that can increase the availability and reliability of launch vehicles while lowering costs. Availability is increased with an advanced guidance algorithm that adapts trajectories in real-time. Reliability is increased with fault-tolerant computers and communication protocols. Costs are reduced by automatically generating code and documentation. This program was realized through the cooperative efforts of academia, industry, and government. The NASA-LaRC coordinated the effort, while Draper performed the integration. Georgia Institute of Technology supplied a weak Hamiltonian finite element method for optimal control problems. Martin Marietta used MATLAB to apply this method to a launch vehicle (FENOC). Draper supplied the fault-tolerant computing and software automation technology. The fault-tolerant technology includes sequential and parallel fault-tolerant processors (FTP & FTPP) and authentication protocols (AP) for communication. Fault-tolerant technology was incrementally incorporated. Development culminated with a heterogeneous network of workstations and fault-tolerant computers using AP. Draper's software automation system, ASTER, was used to specify a static guidance system based on FENOC, navigation, flight control (GN&C), models, and the interface to a user interface for mission control. ASTER generated Ada code for GN&C and C code for models. An algebraic transform engine (ATE) was developed to automatically translate MATLAB scripts into ASTER

A hallássérültek tanintézetének kollégiuma - a szakiskolások helyzete, lehetőségei és korlátai elsősorban az integráció, az önértékelés és önállóság terén

A hallási fogyatékos, kollégiumban élő szakiskolás fiatalok helyzetének, a fejlesztés szükséges irányainak és lehetőségeinek bemutatása kiemelten kezelve az integráció, az önértékelés és az önállóság témakörét. A problémák pontos feltérképezése, javaslatok

Experimental and Theoretical Aspects of High Speed Chip Formation in Metals

121 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1962.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD

Fixture to Monitor Constant Velocity Joint Articulation and Lash

Capstone Design and Manufacturing Experience: Winter 2006The hydraulic pump and motor group of the EPA at the National Vehicle Fuel Emissions Laboratory in Ann Arbor has been doing research and design of hydraulic hybrid vehicles using hydraulic pistons pumps, particularly bent axis pumps, to assist in the propulsion of automobiles. The pump consists of two halves which are rotating and at angles to each other, causing the pump to require the use of a CV Joint. Due to durability issues encountered during testing, the EPA has asked us to create a fixture that will measure the lash in the CV joint throughout its angular operating range. The key requirements of this project are the precise alignment of the joint, as well as the accuracy of the measurements. The EPA requires us to have measurement accuracies of up to 0.1 degrees in some of our measurements and to align certain joint surfaces to within .010 in. The customer also requires us to measure the frictional torque that occurs in the joint and to be able to do this throughout the entire rotation of the joint to note if there are any areas of particularly high resistance.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/49581/2/proj9_report.pd