Acceleration ServoSled Facility at the Zablocki VA Medical Center
Housed in a 12-by-30-meter room with 7-meter ceiling height, the dynamic servo-controlled sled test apparatus is used for human-occupant surrogate acceleration testing. The apparatus is secured to a concrete mass foundation and accommodates various acceleration pulses that have been ‘learned’ by the control software. The apparatus has been programmed for various crash simulations to the occupant compartment of transport vehicles simulating accelerations for individual and generic automobile crash pulses, airplane crash pulses, and under-vehicle blast pulses. Data collection systems include onboard and off-board high-speed imaging video cameras; a 20-camera, 3D, high-speed (1000 f/s) kinematic motion-capture system; and digital data acquisition systems capable of high-throughput data capture. The facility houses a large selection of uniaxial and multi-axial load cells, as well as numerous accelerometers, potentiometers, and acoustic sensors used to measure occupant response to impact.
