Students build crash test dummy for bikes

With the growing use of bicycles and motorcycles, a group of Canadian students has built a crash test dummy to study the effects accidents involving such vehicles.

 

About 25 students from Carleton University and Algonquin College in Ottawa spent eight months building the dummy, tech site CNET reported.

 

"We've been trying to simulate whether you would get a concussion from an over-the-handlebars-type accident," CNET quoted Evan Hayes, a fourth-year student in mechanical engineering, as saying in an interview with The Ottawa Citizen.

 

Algonquin technology professor Wayne Palombo, in an interview with the Ottawa Sun, added there are many people interested in how humans get concussions.

 

"If we can shed some light on that, that would certainly help for a lot of different fields," he said.

 

The CNET report said the current dummy wears a bike helmet but specializes in head injuries.

 

It has a sensor that can measure the force from a sudden backwards snap of the head. The students plan to use it to study other types of injury next year.

 

Other embedded sensors and load cells can measure the force of an impact as it careens down a special track.

 

The data will be analyzed to determine what kinds of injuries a human cyclist would experience under similar crash conditions.

 

CNET reported on a recent demo where the dummy's bike was in pieces after only two runs down the track, where it hit an obstacle. The dummy was intact, however.

 

On the other hand, CNET said dummies designed for car crash simulations may not be useful for scenarios where a cyclist would slam on the brakes on impact and go hurtling over the front wheel. — TJD, GMA News