ABSTRACT
Objective To carry out quantitative investigation on application of emulational trunk dummy (ETD) in evaluating the opening shock of life saving parachute and provide a more reliable test method for further development. Method ETD equipped with parachute was tested in the impact experiment, where a 63.4 kg impact block was dropped from the height of 0.20 m，0.40 m，0.60 m，0.80 m respectively to simulate different opening shocks. The opening shocks were deducted by measured forces on harness and acceleration loads at the center of dummy's thorax. For comparison, 5 rigid trunk dummies (RTD) were tested under the equivalent impacts. As the contrast test, 24 male healthy subjects were also exposed under such impacts with standing and sitting posture respectively. Results Under the same impact, the peak impact value on harness exhibited maximum on RTD, minimum on subjects with sitting posture, and medium on ETD. There were significant differences between each experimental group (P<0.01). With different impact loads, the peak impact value on ETD was 2 795，3 873，4 816 and 5 736 N respectively, which was correspondingly close to that of subjects with standing posture(2 541，3 042，3 720 and 4250 N). Conclusions The result of opening shock gathered from ETD is closer to that from RTD due to ETD’s viscoelasticity, which shall certainly influence the measured opening shock. Therefore, ETD is suggested to be used in the development of live saving parachute.