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When weakening a skin/foam bilaminate by mechanically scoring the polymer skin on its back surface, where it is bonded to the foam, the weakness of the bilaminate is determined by the depth of the score groove. The deeper the groove, the weaker the bilaminate. But also, the deeper the groove, the greater the tendency for read-through. Read-through is seeing on the front surface the location of this groove that was created on the back surface. Scored skins, after mounting flat on a glass plate, were viewed with an optical interferometer. It was found that the topographical feature that constituted read-through was a valley. A Silly Putty model was used to better understand the strains induced by mechanical scoring and this understanding was used to identify factors affecting read-through. Blade thickness and the ultimate elongation of the skin material were identified as factors. This work is applicable to certain types of passenger-side seamless airbag systems, for example.

For human motion studies, which are to be used for either dynamic biomechanical analyses or development of human motion simulation models, it is important to establish an empirical motion database derived from efficient measurement and well-standardized data processing methodologies. This paper describes the motion recording and data processing system developed for modeling seated reach motions at the University of Michigan's HUMOSIM Laboratory. Both electromagnetic (Flock of Birds) and optical (Qualysis) motion capture systems are being used simultaneously to record the motion data. Using both types of devices provides a robust means to record human motion, but each has different limitations and advantages. The amount of kinematic information (DOFs), external sources of noise, shadowing, off-line marker identification/tracking time, and setup cost are key differences.