UMTRI Project

Development of Improved Knee-Thigh-Hip Injury Criteria

Sponsor: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Investigator: Jonathan Rupp
00/00/0000 - 00/00/0000

Lower extremity injuries and, in particular, knee-thigh-hip injuries are one of the most common clinically significant (AIS 2+) injuries experienced in frontal motor-vehicle crashes. Hip injuries, in particular, are of substantial concern because they are more common than both knee or thigh injuries and are associated with a significantly higher risk of long-term disability. To reduce the risk of knee, thigh, and hip injuries in crashes, UMTRI has conduced research under NHTSA sponsorship that has (1) established the tolerances of knee, thigh, and hip and use these injury tolerances to develop injury risk curves for the KTH, (2) collected biomechanical data on knee impact response, (3) used these data to develop and validate computational models of the human KTH and ATD KTH complexes, (4) used these models with KTH injury risk curves to determine that the hip is the weakest part of the KTH and (5) developed KTH injury assessment reference values (IARVs) for the Hybrid III femur load cell and the THOR-NT femur and acetabular load cells that are based on limiting the risk of hip injury. These new IARVs and computational models are tools that automotive safety engineers can use to design improved restraint systems that reduce the potential for knee, thigh, and hip injuries in frontal motor-vehicle crashes.

Rupp, J., Schneider, L. 2004. Injuries to the Hip Joint in Frontal Motor-Vehicle Crashes: Biomechanical and Real-World Perspectives. The Orthopedic Clinics of North America. Vol. 35 p. 493-504.  

Rupp, J., Reed, M., Madura, N., Miller, C.S., Kuppa, S., Schneider, L. 2005. Comparison of the Inertial Response of the THOR-NT, Hybrid III, and Unembalmed Cadaver to Simulated Knee-to-Knee Bolster Impacts. ESV: 19th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles..  05-0086-O
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