The current Part 572 50th percentile male dummy's chest and legs only indirectly and incompletely measure the forces acting upon them - by spinal acceleration for the chest and by mid-femur axial force for the legs. A new chest and set of legs have been designed and are in experimental use in a Part 572 dummy which far more completely measure the forces acting upon them during crash testing. These two new test devices, a chest load-distribution transducer and a pair of force-indicating legs, have been developed as an aid to developing improved vehicle occupant restraint systems. The chest load-distribution transducer is a modification of a Part 572 50th percentile male dummy thorax to permit dynamic measurements of three components of restraint system loads applied to six key segments of the rib cage during restraint system testing. The force-indicating dummy legs are completely new from the foot to the thigh. These legs permit the measurement of most of the skeletal forces that are likely to be experienced by a dummy's legs during leg-to-instrument panel (or knee bolster) contact in dynamic restraint system testing. This paper discusses the development and implementation of both of these new test devices.
Abstract