It is exciting to announce that UBC Mechanical Engineering MASc candidate, Alicia Figueira, was awarded third place at the AUTO21 TestDRIVE competition on December 2, 2014 receiving a $2,500 prize for presentation of her current AUTO21 sponsored research work directed towards mitigating whiplash injuries in low-speed, rear-end collisions. Alicia is currently an AUTO21 registered HQP graduate student of Dr. Douglas P. Romilly (UBC – Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering) who is both her MASc supervisor and project leader of the AUTO21 Research Project A505 – ARI: Injury Reduction through Adaptive Seat Design.
Rear-end collisions are the most common type of car crashes. They often result in whiplash, which can lead to severe long-term chronic pain, economic burdens and reduced quality of life. During a rear-end collision, the seat is the primary safety device available to protect the occupant. Alicia’s MASc work (which is a part of the larger AUTO21 A505 ARI sponsored research project) is to verify that, by replacing the rigid connection between the vehicle frame and the seat with an energy-absorbing foam material that can be crushed as the seat is allowed to move backwards during a rear-end collision, a significant amount of energy can be removed before reaching the occupant thereby mitigating whiplash injury. Her contribution is to assist the project team through prototype design and testing in order to verify computer simulation prediction results of conceptual designs evaluated within the AUTO21 research project by previous UBC MASc students Rami Mansour and Payam Saffari.
AUTO21’s TestDRIVE competition was held at the annual all-member meeting of the Ontario Council of Manufacturing Executives at Queen’s Park in Toronto in partnership with the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters. Six competitors from across Canada faced a panel of judges and demonstrated how their research benefits Canada’s automotive sector. These competitors were selected based on written applications, all of which attended a preparatory workshop in November to develop new skills for effectively presenting their outstanding research. Alicia’s presentation was very well received and it is exciting to see her receive recognition for her work and presentation skills. Her award continues the recognition of excellence in HQP training being achieved through this UBC / AUTO21 research project as Daniel Mang, a PhD candidate also on the project, received 1st Place honours last year in the 2013 TestDrive competition as well as numerous poster awards by the project HQP/students at the annual AUTO21 Conferences over the past three years.
AUTO21 is an organization that brings together industry, government and academic researchers to build a stronger automotive sector in Canada through excellence in public/private sector collaborative research. Research areas include health, safety and injury prevention; societal issues; materials and manufacturing; design processes; powertrains, fuels and emissions; and intelligent systems and sensors.