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Biomechanical Engineering Analyses of Head and Spine Impact Injury Risk via Experimentation and Computational Simulation

Bartsch, Adam Jesse
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1291318455

Abstract Details

2011, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, EMC - Mechanical Engineering.
Head and spine injuries, such as traumatic brain injury, skull fracture, concussion and osteoligamentous cervical spine injury continue to be prevalent in motor vehicle crashes, athletics and the military. Automotive safety systems, athletic safety equipment and military personal protective paraphernalia designs have generally focused on protection discretely designed on a component basis – head or spine – but not a systems basis, considering the head-spine linkage simultaneously. But since the cervical spine acts as the attachment point for the head, the boundary conditions applied to the cervical spine influence the behavior of the head. Hence, in analyzing injury risk for the head and the spine, each structure composes one portion of an intrinsically linked osteoligamentous system; thus injury risk for the head and the cervical spine might be more appropriately considered concurrently as opposed to individually. Historically, component-based injury protection designs have utilized head and cervical spine injury risk criteria developed from human, animal and anthropomorphic surrogate studies. While a plethora of these prior studies separately analyzed head injury risk via linear acceleration, Head Injury Criterion (HIC) or Gadd Severity Index (GSI), or cervical spine injury risk via axial/shear forces, bending moments or the Neck Injury Criterion (Nij), relatively few of these studies employed a systems-based approach to understand coupled head-cervical spine injury risk behavior. Thus, designing for optimal head and cervical spine injury protection may not be as trivial as separate consideration of head or spine component injury thresholds. Therefore, through a series of six biomechanical engineering studies that comprised the chapters of this dissertation, the work presented here broadly investigated head and cervical spine injury protection on a systems-based approach considering head and cervical spine injury risk simultaneously. In Chapter 1, injury risk in inertial loading during real-world low energy minor rear car crashes was analyzed. In Chapter 2, these minor crashes from Chapter 1 were further investigated via use of numerical simulation in MADYMO. While Chapters 1 and 2 explored low energy car crash loading, Chapter 3 explored multivariate head and cervical spine injury implications from direct head loading during frontal airbag inflation in high energy experimental car crashes. Chapter 4 expanded the direct frontal head impact loading analyzed in Chapter 3 to include oblique and lateral impact loading during impact experiments with a Hybrid III anthropomorphic test device. The low- and high-energy injury analysis methods developed in Chapters 1 through 4 helped drive the study of multivariate injury risk in response to experimental omnidirectional athletic head impacts in Chapter 5. Chapter 6 further built on the high-energy athletic impacts from Chapter 5 via Matlab and Simulink simulation of helmeted impacts using a systems dynamics approach. Finally, Chapter 7 analyzed development of an impact pendulum, pilot cadaveric injury response to direct head impact and analysis of similar impacts in a helmeted human surrogate. The results of all of these related studies indicated that head and cervical spine injury risk were interrelated during direct or inertial car crash and athletic impacts.
VIKAS PRAKASH, PHD (Committee Chair)
LARS GILBERTSON, PHD (Advisor)
EDWARD BENZEL, MD (Committee Member)
JOSEPH MANSOUR, PHD (Committee Member)
CLARE RIMNAC, PHD (Committee Member)
231 p.
Anatomy and Physiology; Biomechanics; Biomedical Engineering; Biomedical Research; Mechanical Engineering; Physics
Head Injury; Neck Injury; Spine Injury; Injury Biomechanics; HIC; NIJ; Concussion; TBI; ATD; Dummy; Whiplash; Football; Athletics; Brain Injury; Car Crash; Low Speed; Cadaver; Hybrid III; Biorid

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Citations

  • Bartsch, A. J. (2011). Biomechanical Engineering Analyses of Head and Spine Impact Injury Risk via Experimentation and Computational Simulation [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1291318455

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Bartsch, Adam. Biomechanical Engineering Analyses of Head and Spine Impact Injury Risk via Experimentation and Computational Simulation. 2011. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1291318455.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Bartsch, Adam. "Biomechanical Engineering Analyses of Head and Spine Impact Injury Risk via Experimentation and Computational Simulation." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1291318455

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1291318455
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© 2010, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.