Building JFK's Body DoubleWesley Fisk Wesley Fisk (shown far right) and his colleague David Thompson (left) build anatomical models that are close to the real thing as you can get.
Tracy Staedter, producer for the Discovery Tech web site, chats with Wesley Fisk of Adelaide T&E Systems, the company that built JFK's anatomical surrogates for the forensic tests in the Discovery show, "JFK: Inside the Target Car." 6:00 PM imtracynotstacy: hello
wfisk01: hi Tracy
imtracynotstacy: hi there! thanks for taking the time to chat!
wfisk01: no problem
6:01 PM imtracynotstacy: I always start off asking my guests where they are. So where are you?
wfisk01: In Adelaide, South Australia.
imtracynotstacy: are you in your office? wfisk01: Yes at the moment
6:02 PM imtracynotstacy: And what's the view out the window? (assuming you have one!) :)
wfisk01: Well I actually don't but the weather is beautiful today.. 36 degrees Celsius imtracynotstacy: no window! aren't you high on the executive ladder over there?
6:04 PM wfisk01: Well R&D is actually a lot of hard work and we have to roll up our sleeves and get hands on. imtracynotstacy: Ahhhh. Ok. So let's talk about that. First, tell me a little bit about the company and what it does. And then.....what you do.
6:06 PM wfisk01:
Adelaide T&E Systems is a partnership between key personnel
responsible for the significant industry based development of
surrogate technology, initially conceived many years ago within
Australia's Defence Science and Technology Organisation's Human
Surrogate Program. In lay terms we make crash test dummies for specific
purposes.
imtracynotstacy: And what's your role in the company?
6:08 PM wfisk01:
I'm a partner in Adelaide T&E Systems and am responsible, along
with Dr. David Thompson and many other for the concept design and
manufacture of our products. imtracynotstacy: What does the T&E stand for?
6:10 PM wfisk01:
Testing & Evaluation imtracynotstacy: What are you testing and evaluating? wfisk01: In effect our company specialises in the
development and manufacture of anatomically and physically accurate
models for use as a tool in assessing the effectiveness of Personal
Protective Equipment in blast and ballistic environments.
imtracynotstacy: And how did you become associated with the company?6:13 PM wfisk01: My association goes right back to the start of the Human Surrogate Program in 1999 when I became the project coordinator and one of the principal technical staff responsible for manufacturing. Dr. Thompson also began his association around that time whilst undertaking his PhD. imtracynotstacy: So you've probably seen a lot of interesting things in your time there.6:17 PM wfisk01: Yes that's very true. We started out developing a leg surrogate that would represent a real lower limb. The Frangible Surrogate Leg (as it's now known) was first developed by Australia's Defence Science and Technology Organisation during the late 1990's as part of its Human Surrogate Program, led by Dr. Alexander Krstic. imtracynotstacy: Why was it developed? wfisk01: It was engineered to physically model the lower human extremities to consequently enable the evaluation of anti-personnel land mine mitigation strategies, increase soldier survivability and eliminate the requirement to test using cadaver or animal tissues. imtracynotstacy: Cadavers and animals tissue. I had no idea. Is that what people/military agencies use to test ballistics in the absence of "crash test dummies" like the ones you guys make? 6:24 PM wfisk01:
Well in Australia, ethics dictates that we don't use cadavers or
animals in test programs. There has however been a great deal of
testing already conducted by other countries around the world that
provides us with the biomechanical parameters or loadings under which
certain bones, muscles and other tissues will fail and we have been
able to use this information as the basis for the development of our
surrogate materials. imtracynotstacy: Earlier you mentioned that Adelaide T&E Systems makes "crash
test dummies for specific purposes." Can you give me a couple of
examples of some of the "specific purposes?"
6:30 PM wfisk01:
Well for instance the effects of Improvised Explosive Devices or
roadside bombs on personnel, the effects of ballistic projectiles or
non lethal weapons on the human body. In fact we can purposely build our
surrogates for the client depending on what injury effects they wish to
investigate. Understanding the effects helps us to better understand how to protect against these threats.
6:31 PM imtracynotstacy:
Can you talk a little bit about what sets Adelaide T&E apart from
other companies like it? In other words, what do you do that's unique?
6:37 PM wfisk01: I think there are many factors that set us apart from other traditional crash test dummy manufacturers.
The key personnel at Adelaide T&E Systems have worked with Australian Defence for over 10 years developing 'Surrogate Technology' and have expertise in human anatomy, biomechanics, computer-aided design, engineering and manufacturing. Our company has the capacity to take an idea from proof-of-concept to production, and we have a very strong focus on research & development. We use a range of manufacturing techniques, ranging from traditional casting and moulding techniques to high-pressure thermoplastic injection moulding using custom equipment designed and manufactured in-house. We're totally committed to ensuring we?re at the cutting edge of our field and it takes all of our team's skills in order to reach our goal of creating the worlds most biofidelic (lifelike) test platforms. 6:38 PM imtracynotstacy: It's the "lifelike" phrase that gets me. How are the dummies/models lifelike? Can you give me some examples?
6:42 PM wfisk01:
Without going into too much proprietary detail all of the individual
elements in the models we make, eg the skin, muscle, bone
composites, etc. through to the overall biomechanical response of the
final product are matched one-to-one against the known properties of those tissues
and in this way we achieve a level of 'biofidelity' that is second to
none. imtracynotstacy: What do you mean by "biomedical response?"
6:47 PM wfisk01:
By biomechanical response I mean the way that the tissues or the module
responds to loading, eg if the skin or soft tissues of a living person
would normally be cut or penetrated by some form of loading like a
knife or bullet then we would expect our materials, manufactured for
that specific purpose, to respond in the same way.
6:48 PM imtracynotstacy: So you chose materials (or develop) materials that behave almost exactly like skin or bone or some other tissue, right?
wfisk01: Thats right.
6:50 PM imtracynotstacy:
Were there any particular challenges that arose when trying to recreate
the models for Discovery's JFK: Inside the Target Car show?
7:02 PM wfisk01:
The JFK: Inside the Target Car show presented a whole range of
challenges for us. Firstly we had to match the overall dimensions of
the Frangible Ballistic Head we had to design with JFK's actual head
dimensions. The only information we had was JFK's hat size however from
this we obviously had a circumference and this enabled us to have a
starting point from which to work. All soft tissue depths (that vary
across the head) had to be correct as did the skull thicknesses and
internal shape of the skull. The internal dural divisions that separate
the two halves of the brain & the cerebellum from the cerebrum also
had to modeled as did the brain itself. We then had to work out how to
attach the head to an existing crash test dummy neck.
7:05 PM
imtracynotstacy: Why was that a challenge?
wfisk01: Even though our
designs are modular, we had to specially design an adaptor plate to
mount the head to the neck. In order to make the model complete we
attached both the head and neck to our latest development, a model we
call the Human Thoracic Surrogate (shown above), which can be fitted
with a wide
range of different sensors.
imtracynotstacy: Sensors?
7:07 PM
wfisk01: The HTS
uses loadcells, accelerometers and pressure gauges to facilitate injury
scoring. Accelerometers and loadcells within the dummy head and neck
are electrically connected to the thoracic surrogate
via wires located in the spinal column. There's a custom accelerometer
positioned at the rear of a vertebrae and there are additional
accelerometers located on the sternum and ribs,. Pressure gauges
on the sternum and lungs complete the sensor suite. Outputs from the
sensors are used to generate injury scoring for up to six different
injury criteria and this ability to test against so many injury
criteria with the one model is why the HTS is unlike any other test
device currently available.
imtracynotstacy: How do you feel to have been a part of this test?
7:11 PM wfisk01:
We feel very privileged to have been part of this historic test. As
we're from Australia and don't have any political or other motive for a
particular result we were only interested in conducting as accurate a
scientific test as possible and seeing what the results would tell us.
I think many people will be surprised and amazed by what they see.
7:13 PM imtracynotstacy:
I agree. Well, I know I've had you on the line for an hour now, so I
will say goodbye. I thank you so much for your time and give everyone a
deeper insight into what Adelaide T&E does.
7:15 PM wfisk01:
Many thanks Tracy and if any of your readers would like to know a
little more about who we are and what we do then they can log in to our
website. |
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