In the late 1940s the U.S. Air Force needed to study the safety of aircraft ejection seats. Before developing a safe way of doing this, they used real people. Colonel John Paul Stapp, an Air Force doctor, was among the first “human test dummies”. He was propelled with rockets down a 2,000-foot railroad track and then brake instantly (during this time his body was subjected to 46.2 G).
In 1966 the Congress enacted the Motor Vehicle Safety Act (which set vehicle safety standards that are effecting today). GM’s biomechanical engineer Harold “Bud” Mertz, developed a dummy strong enough to resist multiple tests. By the late 1960s Mertz build “Hybrid I” crash test dummy with different dummy parts from Sierra and Alderson Research Laboratories. A few years later, in 1972, Hybrid II was introduced with a new shoulder, spine and knee responses improved.
One year later Hybrid III crash test dummy appeared – the first family man. In his family there was a female, and ten, six, and three-year-old child dummies. After this dummy family it appeared SID (Side Impact Dummy – for rib, spine, and internal organ effects in side collisions), BioRID (design for effects of a rear impact), CRABI(a child dummy for seat belts and air bags tests) and THOR, one of the most advance crash test dummies with a human like spine, pelvis and a big number of sensors for the analysis of facial impact.
Photos after the jump.
Read More: “Short crash test dummies history”
