Event Report - Tour of Dr. Bir's Lab @ Wayne State

For the SWE-Detroit October event, we took a trip down to Wayne State's Biomedical Engineering building for a tour of the Biomechanics lab.  Dr. Cynthia Bir was the keynote speaker at our banquet in 2010 and is a professor in biomedical engineering.  She has research interests in ballistics and sports mechanics, and you can read her complete bio here.

We were able to hear about the history of biomedical engineering at WSU, which goes back over 50 years.  It started as an area of concentration for engineering, with a graduate program developed in 1998.  A full range of degree programs was offered in 2010.  One of the college's most noteworthy moments came in 1960.  The WSU Tolerance Curve, which predicts the risk of head injury, was developed by Professors H.R. Lissner and Larry Patrick.  Today, this work remains the foundation for motor vehicle and sports equipment safety standards throughout the world.

Part of the tour was in the sled area, where we saw crash sleds that are used for both military and automotive testing.  We also saw the ballistics lab, that looks at human response to non-lethal munitions and the effectiveness of body armor.  It included a gun test range, which uses a universal receiver for firing.

Dr. Bir also has a sports injury biomechanics lab.  This lab is responsible for certifying boxing gloves and headgear for USA Boxing!  It is also used to test prototype protective sports equipment, including baseball, softball, and football.

Recently, Dr. Bir has been involved with the television show Sport Science on ESPN, as well as being featured on Good Morning America, after taking part in the Discovery Channel's Curiosity Plane Crash, which used a test crash of a Boeing 727 in the Sonoran desert to learn more about what actually happens to passengers when a plane goes down.  Dr. Bir took charge of the crash test dummies, examining them immediately after the plane hit the ground, to get an idea of what injuries might have been sustained.  That show premiered on the Discovery Channel on Sunday, October 7.

Top picture: SWE-D members check out the sleds.  Bottom picture: SWE-D members Kristy and Christine get a closer look at the 10 yr old thoracic model for sport equipment testing.