Car companies use these dummies to figure out how safe their vehicles are in accidents. You’ve probably seen those crash test videos where a car smashes into a wall and the dummy inside gets thrown around. It’s kind of eerie to watch, but it helps us understand what happens to real people in crashes.
Today’s crash test dummies are pretty advanced. They have sensors to measure damage and are designed to react like humans do. As cars have gotten safer over the years, these dummies have evolved too.
Back in the ’60s, standardized crash test dummies were created. They were originally based on dummies used by the Air Force for testing pilot ejections. But cars and planes are different, so the Society of Automotive Engineers came up with a new design specifically for car safety tests.
One big challenge was figuring out the right size and shape for the dummy. The old Air Force dummies didn’t have all the features needed to accurately test car safety systems. So, the engineers had to make sure the new dummies were more realistic in terms of size, anatomy, and movement.
Since people come in all shapes and sizes, the engineers had to create a dummy that could represent a wide range of body types. It’s like the dummy is meant to be all of us, even though it’s not exactly like any one person.The engineers asked for advice from scholars in different fields like anthropometry and military medicine to figure out the average size of an adult male. They created dummies that could move like humans and had sensors inside to measure impacts. They even listed the weights of all dummy parts and their centers of gravity.
In 1974, Robert P. Hubbard and Donald G. McLeod talked about improving crash test dummy heads. They used cadaver heads to get the average measurements of an adult male’s head.
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Hubbard and McLeod mentioned that for the dummy heads to be useful, they must react similarly to human heads. So, they needed to set standards based on biomechanical data to define how dummy heads should behave.
After fifty years, human body models became more advanced. The new dummy heads were made of aluminum with a vinyl covering to mimic human skin friction. They were tested by dropping them to see how much damage they sustained.
Peter Andrey Smith wrote in 2016 that many car manufacturers and research institutes collaborated to create a detailed 3-D computer model showing bones, tissues, and organs from head to toe.
The new designs aimed to represent various types of people, not just adult males. This was important because most safety features in cars were designed with adult males in mind, leaving children less protected. The goal was to make sure the models accounted for different body sizes, ages, and sexes.
These dummies are crucial for studying impacts on both vehicle occupants and pedestrians. Even developing self-driving cars requires adjusting these models. Smith explains that dummies play a vital role in…As cars become more advanced, the safety features need to be adjusted to fit their unique designs. For example, a recent study funded by Ford Motor Company discovered that when cars with driver-assist technology brake suddenly before a potential crash, it can cause the front-seat passenger’s head to tilt forward, increasing the risk of head injuries. This research could lead to improvements in seat belt and airbag functionality for these new types of vehicles.
