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Influence of head mass on temporo-parietal skull impact using finite element modeling

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Abstract

The effect of head mass on its biomechanical response during lateral impact to the head is investigated in this computational study. The mass of the head of a state-of-the-art validated finite element head model is altered by ±10 % from the base value of 4.7 kg. Numerical simulations of lateral head impacts for 30 cases (representing 15 human cadaver experiments × 2 mass configurations) are performed using the LS-DYNA solver at different velocities ranging from 2.4 to 6.5 m/s and three impacting conditions representing different stiffness and shapes of the contact/impact surfaces. Results are compared with the original model using the baseline head mass, thus resulting in a total of 45 simulations. Present findings show that the head mass has greater influence for peak interaction forces and the force has a greater dependency on stiffness of contact surface than the shape. Mass variations have also influence on skull strain energy. Regardless of increase/decrease in skull strain energy influenced by head mass variations used in the computational study, the 50 % fracture tolerance limit was unaltered, which was 544 mJ. The present study gives a better understanding of the mechanism of temporo-parietal skull impact.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the ANR-12-EMMA-0026-0 (SUFEHM-13) and VA medical research for their research support to this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université de Strasbourg ICube, UNISTRA-CNRS, 2 rue Boussingault, 67000, Strasbourg, France

    Debasis Sahoo, Caroline Deck & Rémy Willinger

  2. Department of Neurosurgery, Medical College of Wisconsin, 9200 West Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, WI, 53226, USA

    Narayan Yoganandan

Authors
  1. Debasis Sahoo
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  2. Caroline Deck
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  3. Narayan Yoganandan
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  4. Rémy Willinger
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Correspondence to Caroline Deck.

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Sahoo, D., Deck, C., Yoganandan, N. et al. Influence of head mass on temporo-parietal skull impact using finite element modeling. Med Biol Eng Comput 53, 869–878 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-015-1295-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-015-1295-6

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