Puma (SA 330) helicopter impact simulation: demonstration of the efficiency of the French crashworthy seat.

An experiment examining the accelerations encountered during a helicopter crash has been conducted on the SA 330 Puma. The measures recorded from anthropomorphic dummies used in this experiment clearly demonstrated the efficiency of crashworthy seats. Very high levels of acceleration recorded on the aircraft floor are attenuated by the seat. Neither phase shift nor amplification have been observed in the elastic response of the various parts of the dummies' bodies (head-chest-pelvis). The four point restraint harness was also found to be very efficient. However, the extrapolation of results obtained from dummies can be misleading. Original data processing technics and interpretation methods have been developed for this experiment. They might allow the prediction of human tolerance to crash accelerations with a fair safety margin.