FLINT ? Kettering University will crash a deceleration sled into a concrete wall on Aug. 25 to dedicate the University Crash Safety Center during grand opening ceremonies.
An open house and community reception is set for 12:30 to 3 p.m. in the Center, located in the lower level of the C.S. Mott Engineering and Science Center on Kettering?s campus. The public is invited to tour the lab facility and talk with Kettering faculty experts and students.
Janet Brelin-Fornari, associate professor of Mechanical Engineering, is directing the Crash Safety Center. She said Kettering’s Center will give future engineers a better understanding of how to protect occupants, especially children, during automobile accidents. Research in the Center will make automobiles and other forms of transportation safe for everyone, especially children and infants.
While the focus of the Center is to study the interaction between structural crash mechanics (what happens to the vehicle during a crash) and occupant protection (what happens to the people inside), it is also part of a larger vision which includes a Bio-Engineering curriculum, currently under development, and a Crash Safety Industrial Advisory Board, Brelin-Fornari said.
The Crash Safety Center will provide resources for community education programs including research to be conducted for AAA Michigan on an improved design for child/infant seats, Kettering pre-college programs, industry consulting projects and product development.
“The Crash Safety Center has three components: a deceleration sled, a component test area, and a dedicated computer based classroom,” she said.
The deceleration sled is a large piece of test equipment on which the interior of the vehicle (also known as a “buck”) is placed along with test dummies, vehicle safety systems (airbags, seat belts), instrumentation and high-speed video. The buck is propelled down a track up to 42 mph and is decelerated using pneumatics to simulate the abrupt stop during a crash.
The component test area allows for the study of impact on specific pieces, such as a crash test dummy’s head or legs. Lastly, the computer classroom allows students to review data from the test instrumentation and learn how to set up and perform virtual crash tests. Undergraduates will use the lab through the Mechanical Engineering Occupant Protection course and Collision Reconstruction course. Also, Kettering will implement a lab component to Physics I for classroom works.
