Sled

Our indoor sled facility has a pneumatic acceleration system, a wire-bending decelerator, a 170-ft rail that minimizes test article disturbance during the acceleration phase, pre-impact braking, and 200 kW of lighting for high-quality photography. The indoor sled is capable of generating up to 35 g deceleration or 60 inches of deceleration displacement. The sled can reach a maximum speed of approximately 40 mph and the wire-bending decelerator can sustain a maximum load of 175,000 lbs.

The sled pre-impact braking feature can provide up to 50 feet of low-level deceleration prior to impact. This video clip shows the effects of 16 ft of 0.6g (average) pre-impact braking on a three-year-old lap-belted dummy.

We have applied similar pre-impact braking technology on our roller coaster dolly.

Our outdoor sled facility has been operating since 1984. The outdoor sled uses a drop weight accelerator system and decelerates the sled using a combination of a honeycomb energy absorber and a fixed barrier. The outdoor sled is capable of speeds up to 40 mph and decelerations exceeding 50 g.

Related Pages: Test Engineering, Test and Engineering Center