Assessing biofidelity of the Test Device for Human Occupant Restraint (THOR) against historic human volunteer data.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is interested in characterizing the responses of THOR (test device for human occupant restraint) anthropometric test device (ATD) to representative loading acceleration pulses. Test conditions were selected both for their applicability to anticipated NASA landing scenarios, and for comparison to human volunteer data previously collected by the United States Air Force (USAF). THOR impact testing was conducted in the fore-to-aft frontal (-x) and in the upward spinal (-z) directions with peak sled accelerations ranging from 8 to 12 G and rise times of 40, 70, and 100ms.