Digital simulations such as the one designed by the Wake Forest team, by contrast, allow researchers to examine the effects of a crash to a far greater degree, testing a variety of body shapes and sizes and different body positions at the moment of impact.
Later, volunteers such as John Paul Stapp offered to be live subjects in modest impact tests, while research teams routinely used live pigs to test the effects of more serious collisions.Īnthropomorphic test devices, as these ill-fated mannequins are better known in the industry, provide data on around 20 points on the body. It’s not a new idea: in the 1930s, researchers pioneered similar tests on human cadavers. “By simulating real-world crashes, we can study the effect of vehicle design parameters, safety features, and occupant factors and propose solutions that would prevent and mitigate occupant injury,” says Ashley Weaver, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the university and a key member of the research team. For the past five years, the researchers have run thousands of virtual crash simulations, each using data drawn from real-world examples, through a supercomputer. Researchers at Wake Forest University, however, believe that the mannequins may have reached the limits of their usefulness.
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