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A physicist and engineer, in the 1950s Alderson developed the "anthropomorphic test device" to help NASA and the U.S. Air Force test ejection seats in high-performance aircraft. But few called them "A.T.D.s", preferring instead "crash test dummy". Alderson campaigned for the dummies to be more widely used, such as to help design safer automobiles. His first design made specifically for automotive testing was produced in 1968, replacing what was previously used in crash tests: cadavers, and ushered in a new era of vastly improved automotive safety. He died February 11 at home in Los Angeles from myelofibrosis, a bone marrow disorder. He was 90. From This is True for 13 February 2005 Suggestions for further reading:
 By: Gary Larson List Price: $9.99 Amazon Price: $9.99 Editorial Review: The Far Side® and the Larson® signature are registered trademarks of FarWorks, Inc.  By: Jim Daniels List Price: $15.95 Amazon Price: $12.76 Editorial Review: 2006 Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry "Daniels can turn a poem in unexpected directions, and he has an ear for real American phrasing?nothing pumped up, inflated, 'Poetic' with a capital 'P.' Revolt of the Crash-Test Dummies is the real stuff: honest, very well made, engaging, and loaded with irony and humor."?Christopher Buckley, author of Sleepwalk: California Dreamin' and a Last Dance with the '60s On Places/Everyone "These poems are a refreshment. They hiss and steam with the street's vibrant hardness, the effort to look around the corner, pain in the eyes after a long day's work."?Carolyn Forché, author of Blue Hour Jim Daniels has published nine collections of poetry, as well as screenplays and short fiction. His poems have appeared in the Pushcart Prize and the Best American Poetry anthologies. Daniels lives in Pittsburgh, where he directs the Creative Writing Program at Carnegie Mellon University.  By: ISO/TC 22/SC 22 List Price: $215.00 Amazon Price: $215.00 Editorial Review: ISO 13232-3:2005 specifies the minimum requirements for the: biofidelity of the motorcyclist anthropometric impact dummy; compatibility of the dummy with motorcycles, helmets, multi-directional impacts, and the instrumentation; and repeatability and reproducibility of the dummy properties and responses. ISO 13232 specifies minimum requirements for research into the feasibility of protective devices fitted to motorcycles, which are intended to protect the rider in the event of a collision. ISO 13232 is applicable to impact tests involving: two-wheeled motorcycles; the specified type of opposing vehicle; either a stationary and a moving vehicle or two moving vehicles; for any moving vehicle, a steady speed and straight-line motion immediately prior to impact; one helmeted dummy in a normal seating position on an upright motorcycle; the measurement of the potential for specified types of injury, by body region; and evaluation of the results of paired impact tests (i.e. comparisons between motorcycles fitted and not fitted with the proposed devices). ISO 13232 does not apply to testing for regulatory or legislative purposes.  By: A.C. CroftM.M.G.M. Philippens List Price: $7.95 Amazon Price: $7.95 Editorial Review: This digital document is a journal article from Accident Analysis and Prevention, published by Elsevier in 2007. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser. Description: Study design: Human subjects and the recently developed RID2 rear impact crash test dummy were exposed to a series of full scale, vehicle-to-vehicle crash tests. Objective: To evaluate the biofidelity of the RID2 anthropometric test dummy on the basis of calculated neck injury criterion (NIC) values by comparing these values to those obtained from human subjects exposed in the very same crashes. Summary of background data: The widely used and familiar hybrid III dummy has been said to lack biofidelity in the special application of low speed rear impact crashes. Several attempts have been made to modify this dummy with only marginal success. Two completely new dummies have been developed; the BioRID and the RID2. Neither have been tested under real world crash boundary conditions in side-by-side comparisons with live human subjects. Methods: Volunteer subjects, including a 50th percentile male, a 95th percentile male, and a 50th percentile female, were placed in the driver's seat of a vehicle and subjected to a series of three low speed rear impact crashes each. The RID2 dummy, which is modeled after a 50th percentile male, was placed in the passenger seat in each case. Both subjects and dummy were fully instrumented and acceleration-time histories were recorded. From this data, velocities of the heads and torsos were determined and both were used to calculate the NIC values for both crash test subjects and the RID2. Results: The RID2 demonstrated generally higher head accelerations and NIC values than those of the human subjects. Most of the observed variations might be explained on the basis of differing head restraint geometry, posture, and body size. The RID2 NIC values compared most favorably with those of the 50th percentile male subject. For the whole group, the correlations between RID2 and human subjects did not reach statistical significance. Conclusions: The small number of test subjects and crash tests limited the statistical power of this pilot study, and the correlation between the RID2 and human subject NIC values were not statistically significant. The overall qualitative performance and biofidelity of the RID2 was reasonable when compared with the male human 50th percentile subject. Its overall higher ranges of head acceleration and calculated NIC values compared to all of the human subjects were generally consistent. This condition could likely be improved by increasing the stiffness of the RID2 neck. Biofidelic validation of the RID2 will require ongoing testing using a larger number of human subjects and varying boundary conditions. The results of this pilot study, while encouraging, should be considered preliminary. Crash-Test Dummy's Use Called Harmful.: An article from: National Underwriter... By: Steven Brostoff List Price: $5.95 Amazon Price: $5.95 Editorial Review: This digital document is an article from National Underwriter Property & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management, published by The National Underwriter Company on January 18, 1999. The length of the article is 373 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser. From the supplier: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety challenges the effectiveness and safety of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's proposed crash test for motor vehicle air bag restraint system. The inadequacy of the test dummy and the crash barrier, may affect design of safe protective air bag. Citation Details Title: Crash-Test Dummy's Use Called Harmful. Author: Steven Brostoff Publication: National Underwriter Property & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management (Magazine/Journal) Date: January 18, 1999 Publisher: The National Underwriter Company Volume: 103 Issue: 3 Page: 38(1) Distributed by Thomson Gale |
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