Car crash survivors have more to thank than luck, as carmakers put in a lot of effort in crash simulation and analysis. Toyota has added two new members to its family of digital crash test dummies. Known as THUMS (Total Human Model for Safety) these virtual humans provide much more detailed crash test results than physical crash-test dummies.
TMC began developing THUMS in 1997 and Version 1 was completed and commercially launched in 2000. The company is now using Version 4, completed and released in 2010 with detailed modeling of internal organs. V4 contains about 14 times more information than the previous version.
The THUMS – seen during a visit to Toyota’s technical centre in Higashi Fuji last year – allows detailed analysis of bone fractures, severed ligaments and more by simulating the characteristics of the human body, ranging from the shape of the body to its skeletal structure and skin, which is why it’s good to have more than one digital fellow.
The new family members are a 153 cm tall female (petite girl) and a 189 cm male (big guy). They will join the existing 179 cm average-build adult male in THUMS. All three models come in two types – a vehicle occupant and pedestrian – bringing the total number of models to six.
An elderly person and a child is in the works. With these, it is now possible to take into account different body sizes when analysing internal injuries from car accidents.
This latest software upgrade is the result of a cooperation between Toyota Central R&D Labs, universities and other external research institutes to make detailed measurements of the human body’s internal structure using a CT (computed tomography) scanner.
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Well done Toyota for constantly improving the safety and comfort of the occupants. Once again we have trust in you.
Trust, ya, gonna buy 1, maybe no.. too many wonderful conti cars out there. =D
If Toyota is serious about safety, why don’t they offer more airbags and traction control to Malaysians. Or Malaysians are just blind stupid supporting them by paying them more for a empty spec car?
kia dont need any of these but will still be safer than these dugongs!!!
Really ? Care to share here ?
News Update….
NAHsional car maker has implemented a cost effective method for testing their vehicles with “life-like” dummies for their crash test. Every week, it announced, one politician will be used…
;-)
Probably we should get Tun to be the first dummy, DSZ the second…
In fact it may not be a bad idea, who knows the Nahsional car will suddenly score 5 stars?
soooo whatttt….. Volvo has much more than this if talk about safety