Some Honours/4th year past student profiles

Some students have moved on to undertake their PhD in the Centre and/or to work in the Centre.

Clay Douglas

In 2004 I completed my BE/BSc degree at Monash University majoring in Mechanical Engineering, Physiology and Mathematics. For the IBL component of my engineering degree I spent 3 months work placement at MUARC under the supervision of Dr. Astrid Linder. I subsequently completed my final year mechanical engineering project with the support of MUARC supervision and resources. My project investigated the challenges related to passenger vehicle design and its influence on pedestrian head injury severity. This was a GM Holden funded project that gave me great exposure to vehicle designers and other researchers. The study consisted of reviewing the literature, evaluating pedestrian computer models and subsequently reconstructing a real-world vehicle-pedestrian collision with the software MADYMO. This work was presented to MUARC in-house experts in addition to GM Holden.

Immediately following the completion of my undergraduate degrees, I was employed as a MUARC researcher assisting in the reconstruction of real-world pedestrian crashes in MADYMO. This work was published and presented at the 2005 Enhanced Safety of Vehicles Conference in Washington D.C.

In March 2005, I was awarded an APA(I) PhD scholarship at MUARC investigating occupant biomechanics in far-side crashes. For this project I am modelling occupant dynamics in MADYMO and evaluating protective countermeasure designs for this crash configuration. This project is part of a larger ARC-Linkage project investigating far side crashes. The international research group includes Ford Motor Company, GM Holden, Autoliv, National Crash Analysis Centre, Medical College of Wisconsin, Virginia Tech, Willian Lehman Injury Research Center and Wayne State University.

Angelo D'Elia

I undertook a Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree in Statistics at the School of Mathematical Sciences at Monash (Clayton). My project work was undertaken at the Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC) and related to the estimation of vehicle crashworthiness ratings using crash data collected by police. It was supervised by Stuart Newstead at the Centre and Dr Malcolm Clark from Statistics.

One outcome of MUARC’s vehicle crashworthiness project is a consumer guide on the crashworthiness of used vehicles. Another is the incentive provided to car manufacturers to improve vehicle safety. My project involved the comparison of theoretical logistic regression models in the calculation of vehicle crashworthiness. This comparison was achieved through the application of real-world crash data leading to an enhancement of the current methodology.

A strong benefit of doing a project at the Accident Research Centre is the excellent balance that can be achieved between practice and theory with the real potential that the outcomes are useful in a real-world sense. Significantly, I feel that if my project made a difference to MUARC’s vehicle crashworthiness project, then I too, have made a contribution toward improving vehicle safety, even in a small way.

Sujanie Peiris

I completed my BSc (Hon)/BE (Hon) degree in November 2003. I majored in Anatomy and Maths (in the Science degree) and Mechanical Engineering as part of the Engineering degree, with the ultimate aim of being able to practise Biomechanical Engineering.

During December 2002, I undertook vacation work at the Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC) which led me to complete my Final Year Project (FYP) at the Centre in 2003. The FYP is a requirement by the Faculty of Engineering for successfully completing the engineering degree. As part of the FYP, I investigated the effectiveness of vehicle airbags in various impact directions. The project involved spending time with staff at MUARC, looking at how crash investigations were completed and undertaking a number of courses to further my understanding in injury prevention and various software programs. Airbag effectiveness was determined using a combination of real-world data (which is collected at MUARC), crash tests that were performed by Holden and computer modelling software. For the duration of the project I was supervised by Associate Professor Bruce Field (Mechanical Engineering), Professor Brian Fildes (MUARC) and Dr. Melanie Franklyn (MUARC).

At the successful completion of the FYP I had learnt a number of specialist techniques that are valued in the field of engineering. With the intension of developing my research skills further and contributing to the field of injury prevention, I enrolled in the PhD program run by MUARC after being awarded the Inaugural John Lane Memorial Scholarship.