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Just another day in the sun with the kids? Hardly. The Hybrid III dummy family works the frontal impact crash tests conducted by NHTSA and the IIHS. The 1-year-old dummy (on Dad's lap) is used to test car seats.
(Photo courtesy of Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)
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Crash test ratings are based on the severity of the "injuries" received by the dummies inside each vehicle.
(Photo courtesy of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)
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Child-sized dummies representing a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old have been used in NHTSA testing since 2000.
(Photo courtesy of Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)
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Tests such as this one allow researchers to see the effects of an improperly restrained child in a crash. Restrained only by the lap portion of a seatbelt (and without a booster seat), a real child would mostly likely experience serious injuries, including spinal cord damage.
(Photo courtesy of General Motors Corporation)
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Women & Families
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Meet the Family of Crash Test Dummies
Ages Six Months to Adult
By
Tara Baukus Mello
Date posted: 04-18-2005
When it's time to buy a car, crash test ratings can make or break the deal. Did the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) give your top candidate a five-star rating? Did the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) name it a "Best Pick"? What's behind those ratings is typically 30 or more crash tests, conducted by the auto manufacturer as well as the two safety agencies, at a cost totaling more than $8 million. And it's not just about cars crashing into barriers; it's about the crash test dummies strapped into their seats.
Crash test dummies tell researchers what injuries humans are likely to experience in a similar real-world car crash. It's this data that the crash test ratings really reflect; they tell you how well a vehicle is going to protect you, and your loved ones, in a crash. Today, safety testers call upon an entire "family" of dummies — several adults and a whole brood of kids who range in "age" from six months to six years — when evaluating a car's crashworthiness.
Child Dummies
Adult male crash test dummies have gotten plenty of media exposure, but you may not be aware that there are also five child dummies used in various NHTSA and IIHS crash tests.
Pint-sized dummies have been in use since 1973. Early child dummies were used for car seat research. In 1977, General Motors developed a 33-pound dummy representing a 3-year-old for airbag testing. Today, the company uses child dummies in the rear seats of its vehicles to study the effects on children in a crash.
GM is particularly interested in the injury potential during "submarining," when a child who isn't riding in a car seat slides down under the lap portion of the seatbelt. Researchers also look at what happens when a child is "out of position," or not sitting perfectly upright in the seat. Although GM is considered a leader in dummy technology, many automakers conduct similar types of tests even though they are not required to do so for crash test ratings.
Today, a 47-pound 6-year-old and a 33-pound 3-year-old participate in NHTSA's frontal impact crash tests, although these tests are not part of the tests that give vehicles their "star" rating. In the tests with the child dummies, the dummies are placed in the front-passenger seat to confirm that the vehicle's front airbag will not harm a child who is seated in that position. A larger 10-year-old dummy is used by NHTSA for research purposes only but may be phased into official use in the future. The IIHS does not use any of these child dummies in its vehicle testing, though it does use all of them for research.
Although child dummies don't directly impact crash test ratings, they have driven home the point that today's seatbelts are not ideal for a vehicle's youngest occupants, which in turn has led to federal recommendations (and laws in some states) for placing older children in booster seats. (For more information about using booster seats, see Booster Seats: Fight the Good Fight.)
There's also a family of CRABI (Child Restraint Air Bag Interaction) child dummies who are used to assess the effectiveness of child restraint systems and their interaction with airbags. The CRABI dummies represent infants at ages 6 months, 12 months and 18 months.
In federal testing, the 6-month-old dummy is placed in a rear-facing car seat, which is then installed in the front-passenger seat. Although placing an actual child in this location in the vehicle is a huge no-no because of the airbags, this location is chosen as a sort-of "worst-case scenario" for the test. The theory is that if the car seat protects the child dummy in this location, then it will do a good job when it is installed in the recommended location — the rear seat. Every car seat on the market is tested to ensure that it complies with federal standards.
While only the 6-month-old dummy is used in federal testing, the "older" infant dummies are used for research purposes by NHTSA, the IIHS and automakers. CRABI dummies have sensors in the head, neck, chest, back and pelvis, allowing researchers to determine the effects on infants and toddlers should they be involved in a frontal impact crash.
The First "Dummy" Was a Real Man
The idea for studying the effects of a crash on the human body originated in the late 1940s when the U.S. Air Force studied the safety of the aircraft ejection seats. A 200-pound male dummy developed by Sierra Engineering was used to evaluate the ejection seats in tests, but he was not much more than a mannequin and the researchers were not able to gather all the data they wanted. As a result, the Air Force sought human volunteers.
Colonel John Paul Stapp, an Air Force doctor, was among the volunteers. The testing involved a "human decelerator," essentially a sled that was propelled with rockets down a 2,000-foot railroad track. Stapp (along with other human volunteers) strapped himself into a seat on the sled and was accelerated forward at a high speed and then brought to an abrupt stop using 45 sets of brakes.
The tests allowed researchers to analyze different types of safety harnesses as well as different positions: forward-facing, backward-facing and sideways. In different tests, Stapp traveled at speeds of up to 632 mph and experienced 45Gs of deceleration while facing forward. Save for some small wrist fractures, he made it through unharmed.
General Motors took an interest in the Air Force's program in 1956, after company officials attended a conference where Stapp and other researchers presented their data. GM began using mannequinlike dummies in its research shortly thereafter. The dummies, however, weren't very durable, and no two were exactly alike, so standardizing the results was impossible.
However, when Congress enacted the Motor Vehicle Safety Act in 1966 (which set vehicle safety standards that remain in effect today), GM officials knew they needed a better set of dummies on whom they could measure the impact during testing.
The "Father" of Today's Crash Test Dummies
By the late 1960s, a biomechanical engineer named Harold "Bud" Mertz joined GM and headed up a team charged with the task of developing a dummy durable enough to be used in repeated tests. The team used components from dummies built by Sierra and Alderson Research Laboratories and created what it called the Hybrid I crash test dummy.
Not satisfied with the result, the team went to work on another version that was more durable. The Hybrid II dummy became the standard for the government's frontal crash tests in 1972. Over the next several years, GM worked on a third version that had more humanlike characteristics, and the Hybrid III dummy was born in 1976. Hybrid III is the model on which subsequent female and juvenile dummies are based.
Adult Dummies
Adult-sized crash test dummies were developed to measure the effect of injury on nearly any size adult in every type of collision. Today, the original Hybrid III dummy is used in frontal crash testing both in the United States and in Europe, while several other "family" members are used in other types of crash tests.
The original Hybrid III dummy represents an average-sized man, what the industry calls a "50th-percentile male." He is 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighs 170 pounds. He is most frequently found in the driver seat during the frontal impact crash tests conducted by NHTSA and the IIHS. His job is to test the restraint systems.
Other adult Hybrid III dummies used in frontal impact tests include a 5th-percentile adult female and a 95th-percentile adult man. The female dummy is 5 feet tall and weighs 110 pounds, while the large male dummy is 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 223 pounds. Between the three dummies, researchers are able to get data that tells them the potential for injury for almost the entire adult population in a frontal collision.
The next generation of frontal crash test dummy is likely to be THOR, a dummy currently in development. THOR, a 50th-percentile male dummy, has more humanlike features. A spine and a pelvis allow him to be placed in many different seating positions, such as slouching. He also has sensors in his face that allow researchers to assess facial injury potential.
Because there are different injuries during side and rear-end collisions, different dummies had to be developed to measure the injury potential in these types of crashes. Side-impact dummies (SIDs) have ribs and a spine that flexes differently in a crash. They are built specifically so that researchers can measure the risk of injury to the ribs, spine and internal organs, such as the liver and spleen.
The first member of the SID family of crash test dummies was developed by NHTSA in the late 1970s. "SID" is the dummy currently used by NHTSA in its official side-impact crash tests. A more advanced dummy, called BioSID has been developed by GM and is used in its testing, but neither NHTSA nor the IIHS have adopted it yet.
Both of these dummies represent the 50th-percentile male, while SID (II)s, developed by a group of researchers working with a group of automakers, represents the 5th-percentile woman. She has been used by the IIHS in its side-impact tests since 2000 and is currently under consideration by NHTSA.
Rear-impact dummies (RIDs) have been designed to measure the risk of neck injury in low-speed rear-end crashes, as well as the motion of the head and torso during these types of collisions. The only such dummy currently in service is BioRID, an average-size male created by a group of researchers in Sweden working with Volvo, Saab and auto restraint manufacturer, Autoliv.
BioRID has a neck and spine similar to a human's, allowing researchers to see how his body interacts with the seats and head restraints in a rear-end crash. To date, he is used only in European crash testing.
An "Abused" Family
The dummies are an abused family in the truest sense of the word. Not only do they regularly experience car crashes, they also succumb to some pretty serious abuse before they get in their test vehicle. Every single "body part" of the dummy is tested and calibrated to ensure it's performing properly. Heads are dropped from about a foot off the ground to make sure they will bounce correctly in the collision. The knees are struck with a 10-foot metal probe to test the "skin." Heavy weights hit them in the chest to make sure the ribs react properly.
Immediately before a crash test, each dummy has his or her face, head, chin and knees smeared with greasepaint, so researchers can see which parts of the dummy are hit in the crash. Yellow-and-black adhesive targets are applied to either side of the dummy's head to serve as reference points when the researchers review the crash test videos in slow-motion after the crash.
Finally, sensors are placed all over the dummy's body. During a typical crash (which lasts just a fraction of a second), the sensors will record as many as 37,200 items of data.
Despite all this abuse, crash test dummies actually have a pretty long lifespan. They are used in dozens of crash tests; although, they sometimes need repairs after sustaining "injuries" in a crash.
It's a good thing they stay around a long time, because at over $100,000 each, this is one expensive family.
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