VTTI's Center for Injury Biomechanics (CIB) is an influential research hub that strives to mitigate transportation-related injuries. In collaboration with the Virginia Tech College of Engineering and the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, the Center focuses on creating efficient safety countermeasures and decreasing the number of serious injuries.
Director Warren Hardy, head of the Center since 2009, defines his center's research as having three primary components: injury mechanism, injury tolerance, and injury prediction.
“We are all about injury mitigation and trauma research,” said Hardy. “Our products are the information used for the development of physical and numerical surrogates, and the injury risk functions associated with the use of those surrogates.”
Applications of this research have included military safety, automobile safety, and sports biomechanics. Protective gear for athletes and the military have been developed by CIB, leading to further collaborations with government agencies and the private sector. Facilities available to the Center include a crash sled lab, a shock tube lab, a high-speed biplane x-ray suite, tissue testing apparatus, and a helmet testing lab.
Hardy has worked at other universities that conduct similar research, but he believes that VTTI has cemented itself uniquely among its competitors.
“We have a ton of dedicated and talented personnel who are really willing to make sacrifices,” Hardy said. “We've had excellent leadership that puts together and executes plans even in tough times.”
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