Anthropomorphic Test Devices

Abstract

Anthropomorphic test devices, commonly referred to as dummies, are mechanical surrogates of the human body used in the automotive industry to estimate the effectiveness of occupant restraint systems used in new-vehicle car designs. These human surrogates are designed to mimic pertinent human physical characteristics such as size, shape, mass, stiffness, and energy dissipation so that their mechanical responses simulate corresponding human responses of trajectory, velocity, acceleration, deformation, and articulation when the dummies are exposed to simulated accident conditions. They are instrumented with transducers to measure exterior and interior loading of their body parts. Analyses of these measurements are used to assess the effectiveness of the restraint-system design for the accident conditions that are simulated.