CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE USE OF NON-HUMAN RESPONDING SURROGATES FOR SAFETY SYSTEM EVALUATION

The basic physical mechanisms underlying recent experimentally observed anomalous behavior in the impact performance of safety helmets evaluated with soft (human-like) and hard (magnesium alloy) headform surrogates are qualitatively and quantitatively explained. The principal and physical mechanisms brought to light in the headform surrogate investigation are directly applicable to the utilization of other forms of surrogates (head-neck, thorax, whole body). In particular the results raise a serious question as to the validity of using non-human responding surrogates, with human generated injury tolerance data, for the purpose of assessing safety system performance. The implications of the results are that good crash-impact protective devices (helmet, restraints, etc.) could be penalized and, equally important, less safe crack-impact protective system designs could result from improper assessment of safety system performance.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Proceedings of 20th Conference, Dearborn, Michigan, October 18-20, 1976.
• Corporate Authors:

  Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)

  400 Commonwealth Drive
  Warrendale, PA  United States  15096
• Authors:
  • Saczalski, K J
  • STATES, J D
  • Wagar, I J
  • Richardson, E Q
• Conference:
  • Stapp Car Crash Conference Proceedings
• Publication Date: 1976

Media Info

• Pagination: p. 161-187

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Automobiles; Biological materials; Biophysics; Dummies; Impact studies; Injuries; Personnel; Protective clothing; Restraint systems; Safety; Safety equipment; System safety; Testing
• Old TRIS Terms: Passenger restraints; Test dummies
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00165130
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Engineering Index
• Report/Paper Numbers: Proceeding
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Dec 27 1977 12:00AM