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In a crash, impact against the steering assembly can be a major cause of serious and fatal injury to drivers. But the interrelationship between injury protection and factors of surface area, configuration, padding, relative position of the spokes, and number and stiffness of spokes and rim is not clear. This paper reports a series of high-G sled tests conducted with anesthetized animal subjects in 30 mph impacts at 30 G peaks. A total of eight tests were conducted, five utilizing pig subjects, one a female chimpanzee, one an anthropomorphic dummy, and one test with no subject. Instrumentation included closed circuit TV, a tri-axial load cell mounted between the steering wheel and column, seat belt load measurement, six Photo-Sonics 1000 fps motion picture cameras, and poloroid photography. Medical monitoring pre, during and post-impact was followed by gross and microscopic tissue examination.

This report presents the results of a three-year study designed to collect analyze, and reduce selected anthropometric data on 4027 infants and children representative of the current U.S. population ranging in age from newborn to 12 years of age. Since the major purpose was to provide basic measurement data most useful and critical to consumer product design, regulatory consideration, or other direct applications, 12 of the 41 measurements taken were applied measurements which have not been previously available. As an example of the direct application to product design, measurement of buttock depth on 3-to 6-month-old infants provided an objective basis for establishment of crib interslat distances. A substantial portion of the study involved the design, fabrication, development, and testing of a new generation of anthropometric measuring devices which transmit measurement signals to a portable mini-computer data acquisition system or to a set of readout meters.