Dean Sicking, in red coat, director of UNL's Midwest Roadside Safety Facility, explains the technology behind the SAFER wall roadside barrier system to NASCAR and IRL officials during testing April 24 of the wall at the Lincoln Municipal Airport. At right is NASCAR President Mike Helton.

Midwest Roadside Safety Facility crew members have conducted two sets of crash tests at Lincoln Municipal Airport recently. During the first test, a concrete wall with no support was used. The SAFER wall, built by UNL researchers, was tested in the second round. Above: A car crashes into a concrete wall without SAFER technology during the first crash.
Above left: Researchers look at the first car after it was crashed in the top photo. Concrete walls without SAFER barriers were used in that crash.	Above right: Researchers study the second car, which was driven into a wall featuring the SAFER technology.

Energy-absorbing wall to be used at Indianapolis 500 race on May 26

UNL scientists work to make races SAFER

By Kelly Bartling, University Communications

After more than three years of research and painstaking documentation of 20 crashes, researchers at the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln were at Indianapolis Motor Speedway May 1 to see the first installation of an energy-absorbing wall. Their international breakthrough was announced at a news conference and featured in news reports around the globe.

The barrier technology, now constructed on the speedway turns for the May 26 Indianapolis 500, is a huge feat for the engineers at Nebraska.

The technology is a wall safety enhancement that could make this dangerous sport safer, the UNL researchers said.

"We're trying to make impacts less strenuous on the drivers in the racecars and reduce the potential for serious injuries," said Ron Faller, research assistant professor at the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility. Faller, facility director Dean Sicking and John Rohde, associate professor of civil engineering, were in Indianapolis to unveil the barrier in the much-anticipated announcement just weeks before the Indianapolis 500 race.

The barrier system, named SAFER (Steel and Foam Energy Reduction) by the Indy Racing League, works as an energy absorber, dissipating the impact energy and distributing it over a longer distance of the wall without propelling the vehicle back into the high-speed traffic. The system has an outer steel skin formed with structural steel tubes welded on top of one another to form an impact plate. Underneath is as much as 14 inches of energy-absorbing plastic foam in polystyrene blocks spaced behind the steel skin to absorb the impact.

"The overall wall system is designed to attenuate some of the kinetic energy coming in from the impacting vehicle and mitigate the severity of the crash had it contacted a concrete wall," Faller said. "The impact should be less severe when it contacts our energy-absorbing wall."

The project began in January 1999 when IRL officials asked the roadside safety group to assess the high-density polyethylene barrier then in use at Indianapolis. From there, UNL engineers created an alternative design using the steel-on-foam technology and IRL asked them to continue with the prototype and test the design. While the engineers were in the design and testing phase, NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt was killed in a wall-impact crash, increasing public interest in the technology. NASCAR officials had earlier joined in the development and research.

Faller said 20 vehicles have been crash-tested at the facility's test site at the Lincoln Municipal Airport. The tests included 12 race cars - including Winston Cup cars and open-wheeled Indy-style race cars - at speeds of as much as 150 miles per hour at varying impact velocities and impact angles against the new energy-absorbing barrier and regular concrete barriers, which were used as control measures. The data from the tests were analyzed and provided to IRL and NASCAR officials.

Jim Holloway, a research associate engineer of civil engineering and the crash site director, oversaw all 20 crashes and the data collection and management on each.

"We're studying the forces out there, the dummy data and then all the photography during the wall impact," Holloway said. "Whenever you're developing a product to make it safer, you have to have data. And of course in real races they don't equip these vehicles with high-speed cameras nor the number of accelerometers used in our crash-testing program.

"That's exactly what these tests are for, to prove the benefits of our system."

Holloway and the safety facility's team of more than 30 engineers and staff used as many as 18 high-speed cameras operating as fast as 500 frames per second to capture every split second of the crash impacts.

"These impact conditions are critical because in order to do a comparison you must have similar impact conditions, with the angle, the speed and the weight of the vehicle, to compare," Holloway said.

Actual cars costing as much as $200,000 were used in the final phases of the research.

"This is from the Penske team, it's the No. 2 car with driver Rusty Wallace," Holloway explained at a test in April. "It's a real car and was racing this year. We need to know structurally the strength of the car, is it one that they're using now, has it had safety improvements that all becomes a factor in this testing."

The energy-absorbing barrier design can be modified between races to accommodate different race car styles, open-wheeled and stock, which is important because some racetracks run different styles of cars on the track on different weekends. The design allows track operators to add or subtract layers of foam depending on the car style. The track operators did the installation, which was checked May 1 by the UNL roadside safety team. The SAFER system may be under consideration for use at other racetracks throughout the United States.

The research is important not only because of the high-visibility nature of racing sports, but because the knowledge gained benefits roadside safety research.

"Right now, we only have the design developed for racetrack applications, but we are considering what avenues exist for taking this technology into the roadside community and applying it along our highways," Faller said. "We haven't done any development work for highway applications at this time. It could be fairly expensive and it might have limited applications."

"That's what our mission is here. To save lives on the roadside."

Andreasen to give commencement address

Dr. Nancy C. Andreasen, Andrew H. Woods chair of psychiatry at the University of Iowa College of Medicine in Iowa City, will give the address at UNL commencement exercises May 11.

UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman will preside over the ceremony, which begins at 9:30 a.m. in the Bob Devaney Sports Center. Approximately 1,950 students will receive diplomas, including 105 at separate commencement exercises for the College of Law, which begin at 3 p.m. May 11 at the Lied Center for Performing Arts, 301 N. 12th St.

Dean Steven Willborn will preside at the Law College ceremony. Judge William Jay Riley of Omaha, circuit judge for the 8th U.S. Court of Appeals and a 1972 graduate of the college, will be the speaker.

A hooding ceremony for those receiving doctoral degrees will be conducted at 3:30 p.m. May 10 at Kimball Recital Hall, 11th and R streets. Doctoral degree recipients will receive their diplomas at the May 11 commencement exercises.

All ceremonies are free and open to the public.

A drop-off area for graduates and mobility-restricted guests will be available on the south side of the Devaney Center on May 11. Sign-language interpreters for hearing-impaired individuals will be provided through the HuskerVision screens. Reserved seats for guests who are ambulatory restricted will be available next to the stage on the arena floor, as well as in Section B-11. Guests in wheelchairs will be seated on the northeast corner of the arena floor. Golf carts will be at the ramps on the exterior north and south sides of the Devaney Center to assist disabled guests entering and leaving the building. Tickets are not required.

Andreasen is actively involved in neuroimaging research and has written two widely praised books for the general public, "The Broken Brain: The Biological Revolution in Psychiatry," and more recently, "Brave New Brain: Conquering Mental Illness in the Era of the Genome." She is editor in chief of the American Journal of Psychiatry. She earned a bachelor's degree (1958) and a Ph.D. (1963) at the University of Nebraska and a master's degree (1959) at Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Mass., before turning to medicine and earning her M.D. degree at the University of Iowa (1970). She is a recipient of the National Medal of Science.

She will also be awarded an honorary doctor of humane letters degree.

Other awards to be presented include an honorary doctor of science degree to Mary Hanson Pritchard of Lincoln, professor emeritus of museum and biological sciences at UNL; the Builders Award from the University of Nebraska board of regents to Neal and Leone Harlan of Valley for their service to the state and the university; and Nebraska Alumni Association Distinguished Service Awards to Herbert E. Howe Jr. of Lincoln and William Keeney of Indialantic, Fla.

Pritchard will receive the honorary doctorate 53 years after not being allowed to pursue a Ph.D. in zoology at NU. A Lincoln native, she graduated from Teachers College High School and earned a bachelor's degree with distinction in business administration (1946) at NU. While taking an introductory biology course to meet the requirements for her business degree, she discovered parasitology and stayed at the university to earn a master's degree in zoology (1949) under Professor Harold Manter. Although she won the Wolcott Award, the top award given to a graduate student in zoology, the zoology department at that time did not accept women for doctoral programs, and she was denied entry. Pritchard applied for an International Exchange Scholarship to study with Jean Baer, a leading international parasitologist at the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland, only to be turned down again because NU did not participate in the IES program.

In 1948, however, she had taken a job as technical assistant in charge of records at the University of Nebraska State Museum, beginning what proved to be a long and productive career at the university as a scientist and teacher. She became an instructor of parasitology in 1950, assistant professor in 1968, associate professor in 1974 and professor in 1980. She also served as curator of parasitology at the NU State Museum from 1980 until her retirement in 1993.

The Harlans two years ago made a surprise announcement of a gift to the University of Nebraska Foundation that created the first named vice chancellorship in the NU system, the Neal and Leone Harlan vice chancellorship of the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and honored Irv Omtvedt on his retirement as vice chancellor of IANR. The gift includes an annual salary stipend for the IANR vice chancellor and flexible funds for presenting Omtvedt Innovation Awards to faculty, staff and students. Over the years, the Harlans' gifts have benefited the Lied Center, the Nebraska Leadership Education Action Program and the Agricultural Research and Development Center. They also funded two professorships, the Neal E. Harlan professorship of agribusiness and the Judge Harry A. Spencer professorship of law, honoring Leone Harlan's father, a former Nebraska Supreme Court judge and an NU graduate.

Religious studies professor's work sheds light on Middle East conflict

By Kelly Bartling, University Communications

Nebraskans trying to understand the conflicts in the Middle East often turn to recent newspaper headlines.

But examining sources from history like the Torah, Koran and even architectural relics in Jerusalem may shed more light on the complicated details of the 2,500-year struggle between Jews, Muslims and Christians in Israel.

UNL classics and religious studies professor Sidnie White Crawford is in a unique position to point out details of the long-standing conflict because of her specialization in Hebrew Bible, her many visits to the Middle East and her research on the Dead Sea Scrolls. A recently established lecture on religious history, the Larry Doerr Lecture through the United Ministries in Higher Education, gave her a chance to explain highlights of the historic conflict.

The often violent struggle over control of this important holy land in the Middle East, especially Jerusalem, dates back to generations before Christ when the first temples were constructed, grew more complicated when the prophet Muhammed revealed the teachings of Islam and declared Jerusalem as a holy site, and is marked with sometimes violent overthrows such as the Christian Crusades. The struggle includes religious beliefs and power, and rights over and ownership of places that people of different faiths believe to be holy.

"Within this struggle, people have abused religious symbols and used them as part of their game," Crawford told the Doerr Lecture audience. "Tensions around the rights of the groups around these holy places are ready to rise forth, and these holy places become potent symbols in a national struggle."

Crawford maintains an interesting perspective on the Middle East because of her research of the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered in 1947 by a shepherd in the cliffs of Qumran. They include the oldest known copies of Old Testament scriptures, including the Torah, and date from 250 B.C. to 70 A.D. Her work has taken her many times to Qumran and Jerusalem, where she has seen the violent struggle firsthand while continuing her research on the scrolls. She is president of the W.F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research in Jerusalem.

Crawford showed that one must first understand history before trying to make sense of today's Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While Jews and Christians argued for control of Jerusalem holy sites in the first centuries A.D., in 610, the prophet Muhammed received his first revelation and the religion known as Islam began. Muhammed sought the destruction of paganism, not of Judaism or Christianity, and Islam held three holy places, Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, which became the first direction of prayer, or "Qiblah." Jerusalem was also identified as the "remote house of worship," or "Al Aqsa" in Muslim tradition.

"This identification finds an analog in the Hebrew bible," Crawford said. "The book of Deuteronomy calls for the worship of Yahweh to take place in the place where Yahweh has declared his name will dwell. There is no name given to that place but obviously under Jewish tradition, that is understood to be Jerusalem. And although there is no name given to this remote house of worship in the Koran, Islam understands it to be Jerusalem."

In the 19th century, the primarily religious struggles gave way as secular government finally came to Jerusalem under the Egyptian Muhammed Ali, and at this time Jews and Christians would rank in equality with Muslims.

"This doesn't sound too interesting except when you realize that until this time, Jerusalem was ruled by religious law," Crawford said. "One religion had always controlled it, and suddenly it was to be controlled by secular law, and all its residents were now to have certain rights as residents of the city and to be equal."

"Often the Muslims and Christians had been pitted against each other, but now the rise of the modern Arab ethnic identity makes them allies, so that now the modern Palestinians include both Christians and Muslims. This is something to take note of," she said. "And the clash of two movements set up the modern conflict with their religious claims already in place. Nothing has changed really since the post-crusader period when it comes to the religious claims of the area. Tensions around the rights of the groups around these holy places are ready to rise forth, and these holy places become potent symbols in a national struggle."

Crawford said she is most alarmed now by the recent suicide bombings.

"This is an awful thing that has begun in the last 18 months, and it shows troubled people who are so desperate and misguided that they believe the way to make a statement is to kill a lot of people while blowing themselves up at the same time. This is a very crazy phenomenon," she said. "I don't think that fanaticism can be halted entirely, except by the majority of the people within the group saying 'this is not appropriate behavior. We have a better future than this.' I think that's part of what our role needs to be in the U.S. - ensuring that better future."

While questions at the lecture centered on the current political climate, negotiations and the U.S. role in the peace process, Crawford reminded the audience that peace will take time, given the history.

"This is a struggle between two peoples for their national survival. I hope that they can reach peace so they can live together that way. That's what I hoped for. I think the last 18 months have made that much more difficult. I think the level of distrust that has to be overcome on both sides is immense. I feel deep sympathy for both sides and have friends on both sides and I think that as Americans we should want our government to assist in this process as much as we can. For ethical and moral reasons, and not just because of politics.

"I'm not sure (peace) will happen now in my lifetime, but I had hoped it would. You have to live in hope, because what's the alternative?"

White Crawford agreed that many in the United States tend to side with the Israelis because of the closer relationship between Jews and Christians, but said as the U.S. Muslim population grows, so does a greater understanding of the Muslim faith and Arab concerns.

"One of the things I tell my students is that one way to educate yourselves is to read alternative media outlets. Don't count on just one. Then you have to judge for yourself, and that's hard. We should always be self-reflective."