Landmines continue to be a major cause of injury to both military and civilian personnel. This has lead to various strategies including the development of anti-landmine boots and vehicles. In an attempt to assess the efficacy of these strategies various physical and computer simulation models have been developed. International assessment technologies currently rely heavily on either live animal or human cadaver testing. Both these strategies are subject to wide individual variations and major practical and ethical problems. They are therefore not employed by the Australian Defence Organisation (ADO).

A multi-disciplinary team has been assembled by the ADO to develop both a “flesh and bone” human model and a computer simulation. The biomechanical human analogue is constructed from materials that have been developed to reflect the strength properties and performance of human tissues (biofidelity). The surrogates are also equipped with various sensory devices allowing analysis of the local and remote effects of load transmission throughout the body.

In the first stage of the program Frangible Synthetic Legs (FSL’s) were developed. These FSL’s have been blast tested in the presence of “protective” boots and vehicle platforms. These tests have yielded critical information on lower limb injury mechanisms and have highlighted the failings of some of these “protective” strategies.

These frangible surrogate humans can be reproduced with great consistency and, once sufficiently evolved, should remove the need for experimental assessment on either live animals or human cadavers. Whilst the Human Surrogate technology has application in the development of mine resistant boot technologies, it is also transferable to the various aeronautic and automotive crash test injury programs which are currently deficient in model biofidelity.