ABSTRACT
Most of the data in this chapter is a compilation of tests performed by Yamada and his colleagues over a 25-year period at the Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine in Kyoto, Japan and detailed in Strength of Biological Materials. Most of the tests involved materials from human cadavers and animals. Other data have been culled from a variety of sources, including tests performed by the Society of Automotive Engineers, Wayne State University, and the United States Air Force in preparation for the Space Program in the 1950s and 1960s. Some of the data were also developed in Germany before and during the Second World War. The study and understanding of the structural elements and characteristics of biological materials is paramount in performing calculations relative to how injuries occur and the yield stresses associated with injury. As will be fully explained in Chapter 9, the strength of all materials is based on testing performed over a wide range of forces that produce stress and strain of the material. These tests yield what is commonly referred to as stress-strain curves for the material. Figure 8.1 shows a stress-strain curve that has been generalized to represent some of the points of interest on the curve.
