Matched-pair hybrid test paradigm for behind armor blunt trauma using an experimental animal model.

Swine is an established animal for thoracoabdominal impact studies in automotive standards, although at lower insult levels. Similarities in BABT responses between cadaver and live swine allow for extending testing protocols to human cadavers and for the development of scaling relationships between animal and human cadavers, acting as a hybrid protocol between species and live and cadaver models. Injury tolerances and injury risk curves from live animals can be converted to human tolerances via structural scaling using these outcomes. The present experimental paradigm can be used to develop region-based BABT injury criteria, which are not currently available.