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