| 1. |
- Alvarez, Victor S, et al.
(author)
-
Effect of pediatric growth on cervical spine kinematics and deformations in automotive crashes
- 2018
-
In: Journal of Biomechanics. - : Elsevier. - 0021-9290 .- 1873-2380. ; 71, s. 76-83
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Finite element (FE) models are a powerful tool that can be used to understand injury mechanisms and develop better safety systems. This study aims to extend the understanding of pediatric spine biomechanics, where there is a paucity of studies available. A newly developed and continuously scalable FE model was validated and scaled to 1.5-, 3-, 6-, 10-, 14- and 18-year-old using a non-linear scaling technique, accounting for local topological changes. The oldest and youngest ages were also scaled using homogeneous geometric scaling. To study the effect of pediatric spinal growth on head kinematics and intervertebral disc strain, the models were exerted to 3.5 g acceleration pulse at the T1 vertebra to simulate frontal, rear and side impacts. It was shown that the head rotation increases with age, but is over predicted when geometrically scaling down from 18- to 1.5-year-old and under predicted when geometrically scaling up from 1.5- to 18-year-old. The strain in the disc, however, showed a clear decrease with age in side impact and for the upper cervical spine in rear impact, indicating a higher susceptibility for neck injury at younger ages. In the frontal impact, no clear age dependence could be seen, suggesting a large contribution from changed facet joint angles, and lower levels of strain, suggesting a lower risk of injury. The results also highlight the benefit of rearward facing children in a seat limiting head lateral motion.
|
|
| 2. |
|
|
| 3. |
- Cui, Zhao Ying, et al.
(author)
-
On the assessment of bridging vein rupture associated acute subdural hematoma through finite element analysis
- 2017
-
In: Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering. - : Taylor & Francis. - 1025-5842 .- 1476-8259. ; 20:5, s. 530-539
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Acute subdural hematoma (ASDH) is a type of intracranial haemorrhage following head impact, with high mortality rates. Bridging vein (BV) rupture is a major cause of ASDH, which is why a biofidelic representation of BVs in finite element (FE) head models is essential for the successful prediction of ASDH. We investigated the mechanical behavior of BVs in the KTH FE head model. First, a sensitivity study quantified the effect of loading conditions and mechanical properties on BV strain. It was found that the peak rotational velocity and acceleration and pulse duration have a pronounced effect on the BV strains. Both Young's modulus and diameter are also negatively correlated with the BV strains. A normalized multiple linear regression model using Young's modulus, outer diameter and peak rotational velocity to predict the BV strain yields an adjusted -value of 0.81. Secondly, cadaver head impact experiments were simulated with varying sets of mechanical properties, upon which the amount of successful BV rupture predictions was evaluated. The success rate fluctuated between 67 and 75%. To further increase the predictive capability of FE head models w.r.t. BV rupture, future work should be directed towards improvement of the BV representation, both geometrically and mechanically.
|
|
| 4. |
- Fahlstedt, Madelen, 1983-, et al.
(author)
-
Current Playground Surface Test Standards Underestimate Brain Injury Risk for Children
- 2019
-
In: Journal of Biomechanics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0021-9290 .- 1873-2380.
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Playgrounds surface test standards have been introduced to reduce the number of fatal and severe injuries. However, these test standards have several simplifications to make it practical, robust and cost-effective, such as the head is represented with a hemisphere, only the linear kinematics is evaluated and the body is excluded. Little is known about how these simplifications may influence the test results. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of these simplifications on global head kinematics and head injury prediction for different age groups. The finite element human body model PIPER was used and scaled to seven different age groups from 1.5 up to 18 years old, and each model was impacted at three different playground surface stiffness and three head impact locations. All simulations were performed in pairs, including and excluding the body. Linear kinematics and skull bone stress showed small influence if excluding the body while head angular kinematics and brain tissue strain were underestimated by the same simplification. The predicted performance of the three different playground surface materials, in terms of head angular kinematics and brain tissue strain, was also altered when including the body. A body and biofidelic neck need to be included, together with suitable head angular kinematics based injury thresholds, in future physical or virtual playground surface test standards to better prevent brain injuries.
|
|
| 5. |
|
|
| 6. |
- Giordano, Chiara, 1988-, et al.
(author)
-
Anisotropic finite element models for brain injury prediction: the sensitivity of axonal strain to white matter tract inter-subjectvariability
- 2017
-
In: Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology. - : Springer. - 1617-7959 .- 1617-7940.
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Computational models incorporating anisotropic features of brain tissue have become a valuable tool for studying the occurrence of traumatic brain injury. The tissue deformation in the direction of white matter tracts (axonal strain) was repeatedly shown to be an appropriate mechanical parameter to predict injury. However, when assessing the reliability of axonal strain to predict injury in a population, it is important to consider the predictor sensitivity to the biological inter-subject variability of the human brain. The present study investigated the axonal strain response of 485 white matter subject-specific anisotropic finite element models of the head subjected to the same loading conditions. It was observed that the biological variability affected the orientation of the preferential directions (coefficient of variation of 39.41% for the elevation angle—coefficient of variation of 29.31% for the azimuth angle) and the determination of the mechanical fiber alignment parameter in the model (gray matter volume 55.55–70.75%). The magnitude of the maximum axonal strain showed coefficients of variation of 11.91%. On the contrary, the localization of the maximum axonal strain was consistent: the peak of strain was typically located in a 2 cm3 volume of the brain. For a sport concussive event, the predictor was capable of discerning between non-injurious and concussed populations in several areas of the brain. It was concluded that, despite its sensitivity to biological variability, axonal strain is an appropriate mechanical parameter to predict traumatic brain injury.
|
|
| 7. |
- Giordano, Chiara
(author)
-
Development of an Anisotropic Finite Element Head Model for Traumatic Brain Injury Prediction
- 2017
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a worldwide health care problem with very high associatedmorbidity and mortality rates. In particular, the diagnosis of TBI is challenging: symptomsoverlap with other pathologies and the injury is typically not visible with conventionalneuroimaging techniques.Finite element (FE) head models can provide valuable insight into uncovering themechanism underlying brain damage. These models enable the calculation of tissue loadsand deformation patterns, which are thought to be associated with the injury. Measuresbased on tissue strain or invariants of the strain tensor are used as injury predictors and riskinjury curves can be inferred to establish the tolerance of the human head to external loads.However, while in-vitro research shows that the vulnerability to injury is due to highlyorganized structure in white matter tracts, the majority of the current FE models model thebrain as isotropic and homogenous. The deformation of white matter tracts is not calculated.The aim of this doctoral thesis was to incorporate the effects of inhomogeneity andanisotropy of brain tissue into injury analysis. Based on in-vitro experimental evidence, thestrain in the direction of the axons (axonal strain) was proposed as a new, more anatomicallyrelevant, injury predictor. The initial hypothesis to investigate was that an FE anisotropichead model is a better tool to represent TBI because it is more biofidelic in describing thelocal mechanism of axonal impairment.The studies reported in this thesis describe a method for implementing the orientation of thewhite matter tracts in an anisotropic constitutive law for FE modeling. Results from thestudies suggested that the anisotropy of the brain significantly affected the injury predictionsof an FE head model. For an injury dataset from the American National Football League, thepeak of axonal strain - MAS - was found to be a better predictor of injury than isotropic localor global predictors. Finally, based on 27 cases of intracranial pressure, relative skull-brainmotion and brain deformation, the introduction of the brain anisotropy in the FE modelpartially enhanced the biofidelity of the simulations. However, given that the enhancementin biofidelity was not major, it was concluded that further research is necessary forunderstanding the relationship between tissue-level loading and axonal injury.
|
|
| 8. |
- Giordano, Chiara, et al.
(author)
-
Development of an Unbiased Validation Protocol to Assess the Biofidelity of Finite Element Head Models used in Prediction of Traumatic Brain Injury
- 2016
-
In: SAE Technical Papers. - 400 Commonwealth Drive, Warrendale, PA, United States : SAE International. - 0148-7191. ; 60, s. 363-471
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This study describes a method to identify laboratory test procedures and impact response requirements suitable for assessing the biofidelity of finite element head models used in prediction of traumatic brain injury. The selection of the experimental data and the response requirements were result of a critical evaluation based on the accuracy, reproducibility and relevance of the available experimental data. A weighted averaging procedure was chosen in order to consider different contributions from the various test conditions and target measurements based on experimental error. According to the quality criteria, 40 experimental cases were selected to be a representative dataset for validation. Based on the evaluation of response curves from four head finite element models, CORA was chosen as a quantitative method to compare the predicted time history response to the measured data. Optimization of the CORA global settings led to the recommendation of performing curve comparison on a fixed time interval of 0-30 ms for intracranial pressure and at least 0-40 ms for brain motion and deformation. The allowable maximum time shift was adjusted depending on the shape of the experimental curves (DMAX = 0.12 for intracranial pressure, DMAX = 0.40 for brain motion and DMAX = 0.25 for brain deformation). Finally, bigger penalization of ratings was assigned to curves with fundamentally incorrect shape compared to those having inaccuracies in amplitude or time shift (cubic vs linear). This rigorous approach is necessary to ensure confidence in the model results and progress in the usage of finite element head models for traumatic brain injury prediction.
|
|
| 9. |
- Giordano, Chiara, et al.
(author)
-
Performances of the PIPER scalable child human body model in accident reconstruction
- 2017
-
In: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library Science. - 1932-6203. ; 12:11
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Human body models (HBMs) have the potential to provide significant insights into the pediatric response to impact. This study describes a scalable/posable approach to perform child accident reconstructions using the Position and Personalize Advanced Human Body Models for Injury Prediction (PIPER) scalable child HBM of different ages and in different positions obtained by the PIPER tool. Overall, the PIPER scalable child HBM managed reasonably well to predict the injury severity and location of the children involved in real-life crash scenarios documented in the medical records. The developed methodology and workflow is essential for future work to determine child injury tolerances based on the full Child Advanced Safety Project for European Roads (CASPER) accident reconstruction database. With the workflow presented in this study, the open-source PIPER scalable HBM combined with the PIPER tool is also foreseen to have implications for improved safety designs for a better protection of children in traffic accidents.
|
|
| 10. |
- Ho, Johnson, 1977-, et al.
(author)
-
The peculiar properties of the faix and tentorium in brain injury biomechanics
- 2017
-
In: Journal of Biomechanics. - : ELSEVIER SCI LTD. - 0021-9290 .- 1873-2380. ; 60, s. 243-247
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The influence of the faix and tentorium on brain injury biomechanics during impact was studied with finite element (FE) analysis. Three detailed 3D FE head models were created based on the images of a healthy, normal size head. Two of the models contained the addition of falx and tentorium with material properties from previously published experiments. Impact loadings from a reconstructed concussive case in a sport accident were applied to the two players involved. The results suggested that the faix and tentorium could induce large strains to the surrounding brain tissues, especially to the corpus callosum and brainstem. The tentorium seemed to constrain the motion of the cerebellum while inducing large strain in the brainstem in both players involved in the accident (one player had mainly coronal head rotation and the other had both coronal and transversal rotations). Since changed strain levels were observed in the brainstem and corpus callosum, which are classical sites for diffuse axonal injuries (DAI), we confirmed the importance of using accurate material properties for falx and tentorium in a FE head model when studying traumatic brain injuries.
|
|
