By General Electric Company
Friday, August 19, 2011
Weve featured some of GEs fantastic and futuristic creations
from the past, from the original
“Iron Man suit to the
Walking Truck. Less heralded, then or now, but still in use, is
GE’s “Copper Man,” a quarter-inch-thick,
electroplated copper mannequin from the early ’40s that the
Army used to evaluate the thermal-insulating quality of protective
clothing issued to B-17 and B-24 airmen.
At the request of the National Museum of Health
and Medicine in Washington, DC, the U.S. Army
Research Institute of Environmental Medicine recently agreed to
donate its oldest Copper Manbuilt in 1944for permanent display.
“GE was using a similar Copper Man to evaluate
electrically-heated blankets and then heated flight suits for the
Army Air Corps at the beginning of World War II,” explains
Thomas Endrusick, a Research Physical Scientist with the Institute.
The Institute, Endrusick adds, continues to use a Copper Man from
1951 to test the thermal comfort of modern military attire.
Three GE Copper Men posing
outside the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine
in 1968.
Instructions for GEs
electrically-heated flight suit from 1943.
GE advertisement touting the
postwar utility of the Copper Man in Good Housekeeping, April,
1945.
The Institutes
still-operational Copper Man from 1951, testing the new,
flame-resistant U.S. Army combat uniform in 2010.
Three GE Copper Men posing
outside the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine
in 1968.
Instructions for GEs
electrically-heated flight suit from 1943.
GE advertisement touting the
postwar utility of the Copper Man in Good Housekeeping, April,
1945.
The Institutes
still-operational Copper Man from 1951, testing the new,
flame-resistant U.S. Army combat uniform in 2010.
As test subjects go, GE’s pseudo soldier has proven its
scientific and financial mettle. Copper’s high malleability
and excellent heat conductivity make Copper Man an ideal stand-in
for a human being in the early stages of testing. Endrusick notes
that comparable studies using humans can cost the military $150,000
over five months versus $15,000 over two weeks with Copper Man on
the job. That makes him an extremely cost-effective preliminary
screening tool for determining which articles of clothing deserve
more expensive human study, and which don’t.
With an original price tag of nearly $10,000 and a current scrap
value around $400, Copper Man’s enduring worth is hard to
calculate. Gold may get all the headlines today, but copper was
once arguably the more precious metal. Endless miles of it wormed
through the then-cutting-edge planes, tanks and radio equipment
that helped win World War II. And by 1943 demand for coppera
critical component in many munitionshad so outstripped supply that
the U.S. mint
opted to produce a steel penny.
SOURCE
