LAB TESTING OF SUSPENSION SEATS FOR HIGH-SPEED BOATS: Lab testing cannot determine seats' capacity to protect users from impact induced injuries

摘要

Impact exposure onboard high-speed boats cause severe injuries and even lethal accidents. Suspension seats may reduce risks of injury. Real life testing of seats' capacity to protect users from injury is difficult to perform. Hence a functioning lab testing procedure would be of great value. Advertising and marketing campaigns claim that an ISO standard for lab testing suspension seats exists and that, by using this test method, a specific brand of seats has been scientifically proven to be the safest in the world. This prompted a scientific evaluation of the claimed standard, the relevance of the proposed test method and validity of its results. The study concluded that the method, claimed to be an ISO-standard, was not based on any scientific evidence and cannot test protective capacity of suspension seats and therefore may increase risks of injury. After these findings were presented to the ISO TC108 and its subcommittee SC4, the project CD 19470, was abandoned and the work group WG18 was dissolved. No functioning method for lab-testing of suspension seats' protective capacity has yet been proposed.