Magnus Gens Master’s Thesis ( in Vehicle Engineering) project was initiated in 1994 and sponsored by Skyltfonden of the Swedish Road Administration, and thesis was successfully defended in 2001. In certain areas of our planet there are big wild animals. One big species is the moose (called elk in certain regions). Scandinavia has a very large moose population and car-moose collision is a huge problem with many fatal outcomes.
In order to reduce the number of injuries caused by passenger cars colliding with moose a valid and repeatable method to arrange staged accidents is needed. A moose dummy was constructed after thorough research work. By supplying the car industry with an easy-to-use and easily maintained moose crash test dummy it may be possible to influence the safety research and development teams throughout the world to focus on this type of problems.
At an early stage of the project two Swedish car manufacturers were contacted. Both were asked if they would be interested in taking part in this moose project. It was important to get the car industry involved in order to get access to their experience and information on their needs. It was also important to get hold of crash-test cars.
The project proceeded in a very successful collaboration with Saab in Trollhättan.
The crash safety division at Saab was visited twice. They have contributed with information from their accident database and expertise. The crash test experts criticized the scaled model in a constructive way providing with their aspects as actual potential users. They also decided to supply two Saab 9-5 for crash testing purposes.
This interesting master’s thesis can be found on site VTI – Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
