BIOMECHANICAL ANALYSIS OF OCCUPANT’S BRAIN RESPONSE AND INJURY IN VEHICLE INTERIOR SECOND IMPACT UTILIZING A REFINED HEAD FINITE ELEMENT MODEL

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (07) ◽  
pp. 1740018
Author(s):  
ZHENGWEI MA ◽  
LELE JING ◽  
JINLUN WANG ◽  
JIQING CHEN ◽  
FENGCHONG LAN

In vehicle side collisions, traumatic brain injury caused by the impact between occupant’s head and the interior parts of A or B pillar is a major reason of death and disability. In order to analyze the biomechanical response and injury mechanism of occupant’s brain in side collisions, a refined finite element head model representing the 50th percentile Chinese male was developed. Its improvements of biofidelity comparing to the original head model were illustrated through model simulation against the same post mortem human subjects test. Based on the refined head model, the brain biomechanical responses and injuries in the side impact with interior parts of A pillar and B pillar were analyzed according to FMVSS 201U, and the influences of different impact locations and directions were investigated. The results showed that the brain tissues on impact side sustained positive pressure and those on the opposite side experienced negative pressure. The transmission of pressure wave was easy to cause brain concussion and other diffuse brain injuries. The intracranial pressure distribution exhibited a typical pattern of contrecoup injury. The extreme stress concentration in the junction area of the cerebrum, cerebellum and brain stem could lead to focal injury such as brain contusion and laceration. Moreover, the impact injury of A pillar was more serious than that of B pillar, which was consistent with the traffic injury statistics that the head injury in oblique side collisions was more serious than that of vertical side collisions. Therefore, the interior parts of A pillar should be designed to absorb more energy than those of B pillar under the same conditions. In addition, the severity of brain injury is more sensitive to the variation of the horizontal angle than that of the vertical angle. Both the peak values of the occipital fossa pressure in effect simulations of the horizontal and vertical angles were three to four times of the peak values of the forehead pressure. When the impact horizontal angle was up to 255[Formula: see text], or the vertical angle was up to 45[Formula: see text], the head HIC(d) values would be up to 1320.45 and 1101.06, respectively, which indicated a AIS 3[Formula: see text] injury risk of the head.

Author(s):  
Biaobiao Zhang ◽  
W. Steve Shepard ◽  
Candace L. Floyd

Because axons serve as the conduit for signal transmission within the brain, research related to axon damage during brain injury has received much attention in recent years. Although myelinated axons appear as a uniform white matter, the complex structure of axons has not been thoroughly considered in the study of fundamental structural injury mechanisms. Most axons are surrounded by an insulating sheath of myelin. Furthermore, hollow tube-like microtubules provide a form of structural support as well as a means for transport within the axon. In this work, the effects of microtubule and its surrounding protein mediums inside the axon structure are considered in order to obtain a better understanding of wave propagation within the axon in an attempt to make progress in this area of brain injury modeling. By examining axial wave propagation using a simplified finite element model to represent microtubule and its surrounding proteins assembly, the impact caused by stress wave loads within the brain axon structure can be better understood. Through conducting a transient analysis as the wave propagates, some important characteristics relative to brain tissue injuries are studied.


Author(s):  
G. Krishnaveni ◽  
D. Dominic Xavier ◽  
R. Sarathkumar ◽  
G. Kavitha ◽  
M. Senbagan

Because of increase in threat from militant groups and during war exposure to blast wave from improvised explosive devices, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), a signature injury is on rise worldwide. During blast, the biological system is exposed to a sudden blast over pressure which is several times higher than the ambient pressure causing the damage in the brain. The severity of TBI due to air blast may vary from brief change in mental status or consciousness (termed as mild) to extended period of unconsciousness or memory loss after injuries (termed as severe). The blast wave induced impact on head propagates as shock wave with the broad spectrum of frequencies and stress concentrations in the brain. The primary blast TBI is directly induced by pressure differentials across the skull/fluid/soft tissue interfaces and is further reinforced by the reflected stress waves within the cranial cavity, leading to stress concentrations in certain regions of the brain. In this paper, an attempt has been made to study the behaviour of a human brain model subjected to blast wave based on finite element model using LSDYNA code. The parts of a typical human head such as skull, scalp, CSF, brain are modelled using finite element with properties assumed based on available literature. The model is subjected to blast from frontal lobe, occipital lobe, temporal lobe of the brain. The interaction of the blast wave with the head and subsequent transformation of various forms of shock energy internally have been demonstrated in the human head model. The brain internal pressure levels and the shear stress distribution in the various lobes of the brain such as frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital are determined and presented.


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (06) ◽  
pp. 1440002 ◽  
Author(s):  
XINGQIAO DENG ◽  
SHOU AN CHEN ◽  
R. PRABHU ◽  
YUANYUAN JIANG ◽  
Y. MAO ◽  
...  

Mechanical response of the human head under a side car crash impact is crucial for modeling traumatic brain injuries (TBI) or concussions. The current advances in computational methods and the finite element models of the human head provide a significant opportunity for biomechanical study of brain injuries; however, limited experimental data is available for delineating the injury relationship between the head injury criteria (HIC) and the tensile pressure or von Mises stress. In this research, we assess human head injuries in a side impact car crash using finite element (FE) simulations that quantify the tensile pressures and maximum strain profiles. In doing so, five FE analyses for the human head have been carried out to investigate the correlations between the HIC measured in the dummy model at different moving deformable barrier (MDB) velocities increasing from 10 mph to 30 mph in 5 mph increments and the pressure and von Mises stress of the skull, the skin, the cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) and the brain. The computational simulation results for the tensile pressures and von Mises stresses correlated well with the HIC15 and peak accelerations. Also a second-order polynomial seemed to fit the stress levels to the impact speeds and as such the presented method for using FE human head analysis could be used for reconstruction of head impacts in different side car crash conditions; furthermore, the head model would provide a tool for investigation of the cause and mechanisms of head injuries once the type and locations of injuries are quantified.


2012 ◽  
Vol 198-199 ◽  
pp. 942-947
Author(s):  
Xiang Li Wang ◽  
Shi Mei Su ◽  
Zhi Gang Shang

Based on spherical head models, this paper, by employing the finite element method (FEM), analyzes the potential distribution of the brain scalp surface and attempts to work out the electroencephalography (EEG) forward problem, in hope of finding out the impact the dipole parameters has on it. According to the electromagnetism theory, this paper discusses the general resolution of EEG, it requires electric potentials of the globe's surface, and graphically displays results of computation through finite element post-processing, which tests their effectiveness. Furthermore, it analyzes the influences of dipole parameters on the potential distribution of scalp surface, such as position, direction and strength, which attempts to provide an effective method to solve EEG forward problem, based on diversified head model, and also proposes a prior information to the solution to EEG inverse problem.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (13) ◽  
pp. 4467
Author(s):  
Johannes Wilhelm ◽  
Mariusz Ptak ◽  
Fábio A. O. Fernandes ◽  
Konrad Kubicki ◽  
Artur Kwiatkowski ◽  
...  

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major public health problem among children. The predominant causes of TBI in young children are motor vehicle accidents, firearm incidents, falls, and child abuse. The limitation of in vivo studies on the human brain has made the finite element modelling an important tool to study brain injury. Numerical models based on the finite element approach can provide valuable data on biomechanics of brain tissues and help explain many pathological conditions. This work reviews the existing numerical models of a child’s head. However, the existing literature is very limited in reporting proper geometric representation of a small child’s head. Therefore, an advanced 2-year-old child’s head model, named aHEAD 2yo (aHEAD: advanced Head models for safety Enhancement And medical Development), has been developed, which advances the state-of-the-art. The model is one of the first published in the literature, which entirely consists of hexahedral elements for three-dimensional (3D) structures of the head, such as the cerebellum, skull, and cerebrum with detailed geometry of gyri and sulci. It includes cerebrospinal fluid as Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) and a detailed model of pressurized bringing veins. Moreover, the presented review of the literature showed that material models for children are now one of the major limitations. There is also no unambiguous opinion as to the use of separate materials for gray and white matter. Thus, this work examines the impact of various material models for the brain on the biomechanical response of the brain tissues during the mechanical loading described by Hardy et al. The study compares the inhomogeneous models with the separation of gray and white matter against the homogeneous models, i.e., without the gray/white matter separation. The developed model along with its verification aims to establish a further benchmark in finite element head modelling for children and can potentially provide new insights into injury mechanisms.


Author(s):  
Ashkan Eslaminejad ◽  
Hesam Sarvghad-Moghaddam ◽  
Asghar Rezaei ◽  
Mariusz Ziejewski ◽  
Ghodrat Karami

Blast traumatic brain injury (bTBI) may happen due to sudden blast and high-frequency loads. Due to the moral issues and the burden of experimental approaches, using computational methods such as finite element analysis (FEA) can be effective. Several finite element studies have focused on the effects of TBI to anticipate and understand the brain dynamic response. One of the most important factors in every FEA study of bTBI is the accurate modeling of brain tissue material properties. The main goal of this study is a comparison of different brain tissue constitutive models to understand the dynamic response of brain under an identical blast load. The multi-material FE modeling of the human head has several limitations such as its complexity and consequently high computational costs. Therefore, a spherical head model is modeled which suggests more straightforward observation/understanding of the FE modeling of skull (solid), CSF (fluid), and the brain tissue. Three different material models are considered for the brain tissue, namely hyperelastic, viscoelastic, and hyperviscoelastic. Brain dynamic responses are studied in terms of the head kinematics (linear acceleration), intracranial pressure (ICP), shear stress, and maximum mechanical strain. Our results showed that the hyperelastic model predicts larger ICP and shear than other constitutive brain tissue models. However, all material models predicted similar shear strain and head accelerations.


2005 ◽  
Vol 297-300 ◽  
pp. 1333-1338
Author(s):  
Chang Min Suh ◽  
Sung Ho Kim ◽  
Byung Won Hwang

Brain damage by the impact force was evaluated by the numerical analysis with a three dimensional Finite Element (FE) model. The FE model was constructed from the MRI data of a subject, and visco-elastic behavior for constitutive equation was applied to the brain tissue. From the FE simulation, brain damage and deformation of the frontal head impacted by a steel impactor were analyzed. The variations of head acceleration and Intra-Cranial Pressure (ICP) during the impact were analyzed in order to evaluate Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). In addition, relative displacement between the skull and the brain due to head impact was investigated. And, pathological severity was evaluated according to Head Injury Criterion (HIC) from the FE simulation. The analytic results of brain damage showed a good agreement with those of the cadaver test performed by Nahum et al. (1977) and other medical reports. And then, the variation of the HIC value was evaluated according to various impact conditions. This study would provide useful data and methodology in the field of biomechanics for analyzing the brain damage by head impact.


2003 ◽  
Vol 17 (08n09) ◽  
pp. 1355-1361
Author(s):  
Chang Min Suh ◽  
Sung Ho Kim ◽  
Werner Goldsmith

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) due to head impact by external impactor was analyzed using Finite Element Method (FEM). Two-dimensiona modeling was performed according to Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data of Mongolian subject. Pressure variation in a cranium due to external impact was analyzed in order to simulate Nahum et al.'s cadaver test.6 And, analyzed results were compared with Nahum et al.'s experimental data.6 As results, stress and strain behaviors of the brain during impact were accorded with experimental data qualitatively even though there were some differences in quantitative values. In addition, they were accorded with other references about brain injury as well.


Author(s):  
X. Gary Tan ◽  
Amit Bagchi

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the most common injuries to service members in recent conflicts. Computational models can offer insights in understanding the underlying mechanism of brain injury, which lead to the crucial development of effective personal protective equipment designed to prevent or mitigate the TBI. Historically many computational models were developed for the brain injury study. However, these models use relatively coarse mesh with a less detailed head anatomy. Many models consider the head only and thus cannot properly model the real scenario, i.e., accidental fall, blunt impact or blast loading. A whole-body finite element model can represent the real scenario but is very expensive to use. By combining the high-fidelity human head model with an articulated human body model, we developed the computational multi-fidelity human models to investigate the blunt- and blast-related TBI efficiently. A high-fidelity computational head model was generated from the high resolution image data to accurately reproduce the complex musculoskeletal and tissue structure of the head. The fast-running articulated human body model is based on the multi-body dynamics and was used to reconstruct the accidental falls. By utilizing the kinematics and force and moment at the joint of the articulated human body model, we can realistically simulate the blunt impact and assess the brain injury using the high-fidelity head model.


Author(s):  
Andrzej Przekwas ◽  
X. G. Tan ◽  
Z. J. Chen ◽  
Xianlian Zhou ◽  
Debbie Reeves ◽  
...  

Generally a helmet comprises two main components: the shell and the fitting system. Despite the variations in designs due to the different usage requirements, typically helmets are intended to protect the user’s head through an energy absorption mechanism. The weight and volume are important factors in helmet design since both may alter the injury risk to the head and neck. The helmet outer shell is usually made of hard material that will deform when it is hit by hard objects. This action disperses energy from the impact to lessen the force before it reaches the head. The fitting system frequently includes a dense layer that cushions and absorbs the energy as a result of relative motion between the helmet and the head. A balance needs to be achieved on how strong and how stiff a helmet should be to provide the best possible protection. If a helmet is too stiff it can be less able to prevent brain injury in the kinds of impacts that may occur. If it is too flexible or soft, it might not protect the user in a violent, high-energy crash. For military applications, the requirements for helmet performance may be even more demanding. Not only do helmets have to protect a Soldier’s head from blunt impacts, but helmets also are expected to provide mounting platforms for ancillary devices and to function in ballistic and blast events as well.


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