The development of a stabbing machine for forensic textile damage analysis

Benson, Natasha; Dos Santos, Robson Oliveira; Griffiths, Kate; Cole, Nerida; Doble, Philip; Roux, Claude; Blanes, Lucas

Affiliations

¹University of Technology Sydney, Centre for Forensic Science, PO Box 123, Broadway, NSW 2007, Australia

²Department of Engineering, Architecture and Agricultural studies, University of Santa Cruz do Sul, Santa Cruz do Sul, RS, Brazil

³Specialist Operations, Australian Federal Police, GPO Box 401, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia

Abstract and keywords

This article describes the development of a horizontal stabbing machine with an interchangeable knife holder to simulate stab events. The machine consists of a motorised arm with a pneumatic system designed to deliver 60 unique stabbing positions. The mechanics were robust and the positioning system highly reproducible with standard deviations of less than 1.0 mm in the x-axis and 2.3 mm in the y-axis for a given stab position. The force of the instrument may be varied by the operator to a maximum of approximately 221 N. The suitability of the instrument for simulating stab events was evaluated by measuring the severance length and textile damage from stab delivered from four different knives and nine penetrating angles.

Keywords: Stabbing Machine; Textile damage; Arduino; Stab; Knife

Links

DOI: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2017.02.013

PubMed: 28273544

WoS: 000401097300022

History

Received: 2016-10-24

Revised: 2017-02-06

Accepted: 2017-02-14

Online: 2017-02-22

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