DEVELOPMENT OF A FORCE SENSING INSOLE TO QUANTIFY IMPACT LOADING TO THE FOOT IN VARIOUS POSTURES

Abstract

Lower leg injuries commonly occur in both automobile accidents and underbody explosive blasts, which can be experienced in war by mounted soldiers. These injuries are associated with high morbidity. Accurate methods to predict these injuries, especially in the foot and ankle, must be developed to facilitate the testing and improvement of vehicle safety systems. Anthropomorphic Test Devices (ATDs) are one of the tools used to assess injury risk. These mimic the behavior of the human body in a crash while recording data from sensors in the ATD. Injury criteria for the lower leg have been developed with testing of the leg in a neutral posture, but initial posture may affect the likelihood of lower leg injury. In this thesis, the influence of initial posture on key injury assessment criteria used in crash testing with ATDs was examined. It was determined that these criteria are influenced by ATD leg posture, but further work is necessary to determine if the changes in outcome correspond to altered injury risk in humans when the ankle is in the same postures. In order to better quantify the forces acting on various areas of the foot and correlate those with injury, allowing for development of new criteria, a purpose built force sensor was created. An array of these sensors was incorporated into a boot and used to instrument an ATD leg during impact testing. The sensors provided useful information regarding the force distribution across the sole of the foot during an impact. A numerical simulation of the active material in the sensor was also created to better understand the effect of shear loading on the sensor. This work furthers the understanding of lower leg injury prediction and develops a tool which may be useful in developing accurate injury criteria for the foot and lower leg.