A Review on Recent Development of Finite Element Models for Head Injury Simulations

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the published major finite element (FE) models for simulating injuries of human brains, based on our recent comprehensive literature study on the published works since early 2000 to date. Our focus is on studies of the so-called mild traumatic brain injuries (MTBI) that have always been a major concern with respect to various contact sports, including boxing and football. In addition, papers on the investigations of various types of accidents as major cause of MTBI have also reviewed. Because concussion is known as one of the main reasons for a MTBI, and addressing it has been a pressing need in recent times. FE models have been frequently used to study the mechanism of concussions, and different types of models with various considerations have been included in this review study. This paper aims to summarize all these published efforts, models, data, finings, and understandings of concussion mechanisms reported in the open literature. We hope this can serve a useful source for initial studies for researchers planning to invest their time and energy in the investigations in the related areas.

Appendix: Tabular Overview of the Finite Element Models Discussed in this Paper

First author, year	Zhang et al.	Jin et al.	Belingardi et al.
Software	Hypermesh 3.1, PAM-CRASH, PAM-VIEW	Not mentioned	AMIRA, Hypermesh 5.1, LS DYNA
Figure
Size	50th ‰ male model	CT scan of a Chinese volunteer	31 years old patient CT scans
No. of nodes/no. of elements	32,898 nodes, 41,354 elements	74,636 brick 24,391 shell	55,264 elements and 26,000 nodes
Weight	4.37 kg with 1.41 kg of brain matter	4.65 kg with brain matter 1.32 kg	–
Assembly Model components	Scalp, skull, dura, falx cerebri, tentorium, pia, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), venous sinuses, ventricles, cerebrum (gray matter and white matter), cerebellum, brain stem, and bridging veins	Scalp, two layered skull, facial bone, dura matter, pia, CSF, falx, scalp cerebrum, cerebellum and brain stem	Scalp, three layered skull, facial bones, dura matter, CSF, brain tissues, ventricles, falx, and tentorium membranes
Validation	Pressure (Nahum et al.—frontal tests)	Rotational impact—Trosseille et al., translational impact—Nahum et al., skull–brain motion under rotational impact—Hardy et al.	Impact force behavior—Nahum et al., frontal pressure behavior—shuck, Advani et al., posterior fossa pressure behavior—none

First author, year	Tse et al.	Jiroušek et al.	Hamel et al.	Zong et al.
Software	MIMICS v13.0–14.0, Hypermesh 10.0, Abaqus 6.10	In-house codes, ANSYS	MADYMO 7.1, R, MIMICS 12.3, Hypermesh, Radioss	MSC/DYTRAN
Figure
Size	CT scans obtained from sources closeby	–	CT scans of 30-year-old male	Geometrical data of head model taken from Koenig (1998)
No. of nodes/no. of elements	Linear hex—403,176, linear tetra—1,337,903	–	497,000 elements—435,000 tetrahedrons, 8000 bricks and 54,000 shells	–
Weight	Model 1—4.82 kg, model 2—4.73 kg	–	4.2 kg	–
Assembly Model components	Brainstem, cerebral peduncle, cerebellum, cerebrum, CSF, skull bone, ventricles, gray and white matter, lateral and septum cartilages, soft tissues and tooth	Skull and brain	CSF, scalp, brain, diploe, inner and outer tables	Skull, diploe, brain, CSF, spinal cord, cervical bone, disc
Validation	Trosseille et al.—intracranial pressure data for long duration impulse, Hardy et al.—localized brain motion, Nahum et al.—impact force, intracranial acceleration, and pressure data for short duration impulse, two models generated with different element types—linear hex and linear terta	None	None	Impact experiment by Nahum and Smith (1976), anteroposterior head acceleration of the Trosseille’s test, frontal and (b) occipital pressure comparison with Trosseille’s impact

First author, year	Hamidian et al.	Horgan and Gilchrist	Wittek et al.
Software	COMSOL3.3, MATLAB	VTK, MSC/Patran, ABAQUS 5.8, MATLAB	ABAQUS, 3D slicer, VTK, hypermesh
Figure
Size	Pre-operative and intra-operative patient specific MRI scans	Geometric data acquired from NIH	60 pre-operative MRIs of patients undergoing brain tumor surgery
No. of nodes/no. of elements	15,164 tetra	9000–50,000 shell	15,031 hexahedral and 19 pentahedral
Weight	–	Model—4.017 kg, brain—1.422 kg	–
Assembly Model components	Brain and tumor	University of Dublin Brain Trauma Model (UCDBTM)—consists of scalp, three-layer skull, dura, CSF, pia, falx, tentorium, cerebral hemispheres, cerebellum and brain stem	Lateral ventricle, brain parenchyma, skull and tumor
Validation	Model to predict tumor location	Intra-cranial pressures wrt. Nahum, impact experiments of Nahum et al., pressure–time histories wrt. Nahum, comparison of the material properties using Ruan et al., Zhou et al. and Willinger et al. done wrt frontal contre coup pressure and von mises stresses	Model to compute the deformation field within the brain during craniotomy-induced brain surgery

First author, year	Takhounts et al.	Kimpara et al.	McAllister et al.
Software	Truegrid, LS-DYNA	Hypermesh, LS-DYNA	MATLAB, Truegrid, Abaqus
Figure
Size	CT scan of 50th ‰ male	50th ‰ American male, visible human project (NIH)	High-resolution T1-weighted MR images from a single template-defining subject
No. of nodes/no. of elements	42,500 nodes and 45,875 elements	49,579 elements (24,096 solid, 25,119 shell, and 364 seatbelt elements)	–
Weight	–	4.39 kg	–
Assembly model components	Cerebrum, cerebellum, brainstem, ventricles, combined CSF and pia arachnoid complex (PAC) layer, falx, tentorium, and parasagittal blood vessels	Facial bones, cerebrum, cerebellum, brainstem, CSF, sagittal sinus, dura, pia, arachnoid, meninx, falx cerebri, tentorium	Skull, brain, falx
Validation	Strain field of the model based on the neutral density targets (NDTs) data presented by Hardy et al. [25], stress field within the brain of SIMon FEHM and compared it to that obtained from PMHS tests of Nahum et al. [24] and Trosseille et al. [30]	Anteroposterior responses of head and neck during frontal impacts validated against Nahum, Trosseille and Hardy, cervical axial compression validated against Pintar et al. and neck flexion validated against Thunnissen et al.	Relative brain–skull displacement data as well as intracranial pressure data from Nahum et al. and Trosseille et al., biomechanical head acceleration traces were applied to the rigid body skull, and relative brain–skull trajectories at two neutral density target locations corresponding to NDT 4 and 11 in Hardy et al. were validated

First author, year	Brands et al.	Kleiven and Holst	Deck and Willinger
Software	MADMYO 5.4.1, hyper mesh	LS-DYNA	Hypermesh, LS-DYNA
Figure
Size	Visible human data set from US National Library of Medicine	Human database (National Institute of Health)	Digitized from human adult male skull and data from Ferner et al. was used
No. of nodes/no. of elements	14,092, eight-node, brick elements	Coarsely meshed model—1500, refined model—40,000	13,208 elements
Weight	–	–	4.7 kg
Assembly Model components	Cerebrum, cerebellum, brainstem, falx cerebri, falx cerebelli, tentorium cerebelli, duramater, neorocranium, viscerocranium	Outer table/face, inner table, diploe, neck bone, neck muscles, brain hyperelastic, dura mater, falx/tentorium, scalp	Skull, falx, tentorium, subarachnoid space, scalp, cerebrum, cerebellum, and brainstem
Validation	Not accurate so no validation	Intracranial pressure–time by Nahum et al.	Comparisons done with the HIC of SIMon model