Traffic safety is one of the major concerns of auto manufacturers. That is why a group of car manufacturers have been formed to continuously develop safety devices for their vehicles. One of the newcomers to the group is Ford Motor Company.
The Dearborn based company announced just recently that they will be sharing their expertise to the group's effort. The Global Human Body Models Consortium LLC, as the group is named, was formed on April of last year. The group's aim is to develop human body models which will allow them to design better life saving devices.
Ford has joined other car manufacturers in the group. DaimlerChrysler AG., The General Motors Corp., Honda Motor Co., Hyundai Motor Co., Nissan Motor Corp., the PSA Peugeot-Citroën, Renault sas, Takata Corp., the Toyota Motor Corp. and the TRW Inc. are the other members of the consortium.
Ford made known that they would be making their human body model available to the group. For 14 years now, the company has been developing computer human body models which they have been using to develop restraint systems for their vehicles which complement Ford bumpers which are designed to absorb most of the energy generated during a front end collision. The company has developed the most advanced computer human body model which shows the bodies of human beings in microscopic details.
The said model allows researchers to study how certain car crashes affect a person. The full human body model is the most advanced model ever developed by a car manufacturer. The model's most advanced feature is the detailed representation of the human brain and internal organs.
In 1993, the company started the model bit by bit. Throughout the years, the company has created computer models of different body parts. The head, neck, ribcage, abdomen, thoracic and lumbar spinal, internal organs of the chest and abdomen, pelvis, and the upper and lower extremities were developed from 1993 until 2004.
In 2004, the different parts were brought together to form a detailed and very complete human body model. During the construction of the model, researchers for Ford collected data from MRI scans and human anatomy texts. After the construction of the model, Ford researchers validated it by cadaver testing. Volunteer human testing was also done to make sure that the model indeed represents the human body in a very detailed form.
"The Human Body Model will help reduce physical testing on component and full-scale levels during vehicle development," says Dr. Saeed Barbat, the manager of the Passive Safety Research and Advanced Engineering for the Ford Motor Company. "It will also be used to develop more sophisticated instrumentation that could lead to more human-like crash dummies," added Barbat further. The human body model's most noticeable character is the very detailed spine model. The company has succeeded in creating a model spine with all the vertebrae segments and cartilage present. Aside from that, the detailed human brain model also allow researchers to study how a person's head can be damaged by certain crashes and thereby allowing them to create a device or safety feature to prevent severe brain damage caused by car crashes.
The consortium will be able to use this technology developed by Ford to create better restraint systems to further protect motorists. The group has already asked for proposals from different research and university groups all over the e world. From these proposals, the group is planning to select five which will be tasked to study the reaction of different body parts in cases of crashes. The group has announced that the Phase One of their plan is the development of six computer human body models. Large, medium, and small male and female models will have to be created which will be used in the next phase of their plan. The group projects that the six models will be developed by the year 2011.