"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 19:01:50 GMT, David CL Francis
wrote in
::

According to my quick sum that is about an 11g average over 30 ft.

I recall a rule of thumb, that the human body is able to withstand ~20
Gs.

But, it has gone much higher:

"By riding the decelerator sled himself, Dr. Stapp demonstrated that a human
can withstand at least 45 G's in the forward position, with adequate
harness. This is the highest known G force voluntarily encountered by a
human. Dr. Stapp believed that the tolerance of humans to G force had not
yet been reached in tests, and is, in fact, much greater than ordinarily
thought possible."

From:

http://www.edwards.af.mil/history/do...biography.html

And, doesn't duration factor in as well? For example, race car drivers have
experienced extremely high g-forces in wrecks but these were measured in
milliseconds.

I did a little Google-ing and saw references to NASCAR Black Box data
suggesting that some wrecks have been as high as 80Gs with Jerry Nadeau's
accident at Richmond a couple of years ago possibly being in the area of
"160Gs"

Mentioned In:

http://www.nascar.com/2003/news/head...eck/index.html

Jay Beckman
PP-ASEL
Chandler, AZ