Air Warrior Col. John W. Thompson - KMI Media Group

Averting Personnel
Injuries
weight (typically the 50th percentile male)
and a single shock condition. Outside
these ideal conditions, they provide subpar
protection.
But in maritime operations, especially
onboard special operations craft, ideal conditions
do not exist. Conditions such as high
sea states, boat speed, course relative to
wind direction, and boat payload/weights are
highly variable—leading to erratic shock and
vibration conditions.
In addition, MR devices provide advantages
over competing active damping technologies
due to their simplicity, company
officials explained. MR fluid shock absorber
systems are enabled by versatile MR fluid technology,
which allows the system to respond
instantly and controllably to varying levels
of vibration, shock or motion with simple,
robust designs.
This novel seat suspension by TSI and
Lord automatically varies the damping and
energy attenuating capabilities, providing
protection for all warfighters, regardless of
their size and weight
and the operational conditions.
This system leverages decades
of Lord production experience of various
MR devices.
In particular, the Lord Motion Master
Ride Management System has provided vibration
and shock isolation in over 75,000 commercial
truck seats since initial production in
1998. While this system has been developed
and tested with the U.S. Navy’s RHIBs and
Mark V SOC in mind, the system can easily be
adapted into seats for all armed services and
any high speed watercraft.
“The biggest problem with smaller craft is
wave shock,” said Doug Taylor, CEO of Taylor
Devices in North Tonawanda, N.Y. “It can
cause damage to equipment and to people. A
severe wave shock can knock someone out.
The most important thing about any armed
vessel is to optimize the blending of man
and machine.”
Naval Special Warfare has pursued existing
and future technologies in pursuit of
mitigating musculoskeletal, boat-related
injuries. After it came to light that operators
on the Mark V Special Operations Craft were
subjected to a litany of debilitating injuries,
NSW performed a market survey in 2004 of
available systems and directed minor design
changes of existing shock mitigating seat
technologies. As a result, the standard rigid
STIDD V-4 seats in the Mark V were replaced
with STIDD-Taylor V-5.3 seats equipped with
passive shock absorbers. All 21 operator seats
were replaced on all 20 Mark Vs.
“The STIDD-Taylor Shock Mitigating Seat
has received wide acclaim for reducing injuries
during severe sea-state conditions,” said
Doug Taylor. “The seat was ergonomically
designed by STIDD to restrain the operator
so that he is not working his muscles to hold
himself into the seat.”
The shock absorbing device used in this
seat developed by Taylor Devices involves a
spring and damper combination that has the
ability to sense the incoming force so that it
can change its output accordingly.
STIDD comes to the design and production
of shock mitigating seats with a
background in orthopedic and sports medicine
research. “Our seats are compliant with
medical guidelines as well as military specifications,”
said Walter Gezari, CEO of STIDD
Systems Inc., in Greenport, N.Y. “Before we
get to the designing stage of a seat, we study
where the force is going and how to dissipate
it. We also figure out how to position and
stabilize the user and place him in the proper
orientation to accept the highest amount
of load with the least amount of damage.
The STIDD-Taylor seat solved the problem on
the Mark V.”
But Holmes views passive shock absorbing
as a less-than-optimal solution. “The
problem with a passive system is that the
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