page_title: Crash test dummy
section_title: Volunteer testing
hierarchical_section_title: Crash test dummy / History / Volunteer testing
context_page_description: A crash test dummy is a full-scale anthropomorphic test device that simulates the dimensions, weight proportions and articulation of the human body during a traffic collision. Dummies are used by researchers, automobile and aircraft manufacturers to predict the injuries a person might sustain in a crash. Modern dummies are usually instrumented to record data such as velocity of impact, crushing force, bending, folding, or torque of the body, and deceleration rates during a collision. Some dummies cost over US$400,000.
  Prior to the development of crash test dummies, automobile companies tested using human cadavers, animals and live volunteers. Cadavers have been used to modify different parts of a car such as the seatbelt This type of testing may provide more realistic test results than using a dummy but it raises ethical dilemmas because human cadavers and animals are not able to consent to research studies. Animal testing is not prevalent today. Computational models of the human body are increasingly being used in the industry and research to complement the use of dummies as virtual tools.
  There is constant need for new testing because each new vehicle has a different design.
context_section_description: Some researchers took it upon themselves to serve as crash test dummies. In 1954, USAF Colonel John Paul Stapp was propelled to over 1000 km/h on a rocket sled and stopped in 1.4 seconds. Lawrence Patrick, then a professor at Wayne State University, endured some 400 rides on a rocket sled in order to test the effects of rapid deceleration on the human body. He and his students allowed themselves to be hit in the chest with heavy metal pendulums, impacted in the face by pneumatically driven rotary hammers, and sprayed with shattered glass to simulate window implosion. While admitting that it made him "a little sore", Patrick has said that the research he and his students conducted was seminal in developing mathematical models against which further research could be compared. While data from live testing was valuable, human subjects could not withstand tests that exceeded a certain degree of physical injury. To gather information about the causes and prevention of injuries and fatalities would require a different kind of test subject.
caption: Colonel Stapp riding a rocket sled at Edwards Air Force Base
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