The evaluation of new multi-material human soft tissue simulants for sports impact surrogates

To explore the worth of the silicone simulants, finite element (FE) models were developed using anthropometric parameters representative of the human thigh segment, derived from the Visible Human Project. The multi-material silicone construction was validated experimentally and compared with both organic tissue data from literature and commonly used single material simulants: Dow Corning Silastic 3480 series silicones and ballistics gelatin when subject to a representative sports specific knee impact. Superior biofidelic performance is reported for the PDMS silicone formulations and surrogate predictions.