Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: "How It's Made" Crash Test Dummies

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Posted by Joshua Waaland (Member # 287) on 04-22-2008, 07:10 PM:

Anyone happen to catch tonight's episode? There are only two companies that manufacture crash test dummies. One is near my hometown Sandusky, Ohio (In the movie Tommy Boy) and the other is in California.

My brother talked me into coming to work with him in 1996 so I trained a replacement for my projectionist job that I was leaving. I worked with my brother for a year delivering supplies to dive bars while still keeping a few shifts in the booth. The guy who I trained to replace me in the booth was the son of the owner of the crash test dummy company. He knew I wanted to make a change again so he got me a job at his parents company. (A few years later we both went to the same college and he introduced me to my wife too) When I worked there they were called Vector Research, then Applied Industrial Technologies and now they are called Denton ATD. I was the only assembler at the time. I assembled dummies for the next two years as well as helped out on the CNC machines when I had nothing to assemble which was quite often since we didn't stock anything.

I had to make sub-assemblies then find their center of gravity with special software and fixtures and scales. Then they went to the test lab to have the drop tests done and came back to me for final assembly and dummy measurement. After that I assembled the binder with all of the test data for that specific dummy and gave it to the shipping guy.

It was a blast taking dummies from our shop across town to the engineering building before they built the new building. I would sit them in the front passenger seat and cruise through the traffic going to the local amusement park in the summer. You should have seen the looks I would get. [Big Grin]

I kept a couple of the reject skin parts but threw them away when I was in college because I got tired of moving them from apartment to apartment.

They showed the current assembly guy on tonight's episode. I missed my fifteen minutes of fame again so I have to bore you guys with my story. Sorry. [Razz]

Check out this webpage if you are interested. Go to the Vesta link on the left panel. DENTON ATD

[ 04-23-2008, 06:47 AM: Message edited by: Joshua Waaland ]

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 04-23-2008, 08:26 AM:

Actually it sounds pretty cool ... Why did you have to find the center of gravity? Once you make one model, wouldn't they all be the same?

Posted by Joshua Waaland (Member # 287) on 04-23-2008, 11:47 AM:

They take a metal mold and fill it with liquid vinyl and bake it for a predetermined amount of time. They dump out the excess vinyl and let it cool. Then they pour in a mixture of liquids that turn into foam and fill the cavities in the vinyl and around the metal bone structures. The vinyl is like our skin and the foam is like the flesh underneath and the steel tubes are the bones.

Once the part is molded it goes to the trimmers and they cut off the molding sprues and patch the holes. This whole process, especially the vinyl, can leave heavier deposits in different places from one part to the next. The technicians who do the crash testing need specific calculations on parts so that their calculations come out right. Center of gravity on sub assemblies like lower arms, upper arms, hands, lower legs, feet, thighs, pelvis, chest, head and neck are important to them for some reason. [Confused]

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 04-27-2008, 08:23 PM:

That's pretty cool, Joshua! I enjoy hearing about niche specializations like that.