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home / centre for automotive safety research / Publications / List / Details Publication Details| Title | Investigation of head injury mechanisms | | Authors | Gibson TJ, McLean AJ, McCaul KA | | Year | 1984 | | Type | Journal Article | | Abstract | In the past 20 years significant gains have been made in the crashworthiness of motor vehicles. However the rate of progress has been limited by an inadequate understanding of human tolerance to impact. Much of our knowledge of impact tolerance has been derived from experimental reconstruction of accident situations using human surrogates. such as instrumented dummies or cadavers. With the availability of more advanced computing techniques the emphasis is changing to the use of mathematical models to reconstruct actual accidents. This paper describes the procedure which has been adopted by the NH&MRC Road Accident Research Unit to investigate the mechanisms of head injury in motor vehicle accidents. A computer program called SMAC (Simulation Model of Automobile Collisions) is used to reconstruct the crash events. based on data collected at the accident site and from a detailed inspection of the vehicles involved. The crash victim simulation program, MADYMO, is then used to model the kinematic behaviour of the victim. The victim is represented as a tree structure of rigid elements that are connected by pinned joints and is made to interact forcibly with the environment The program uses a form of Lagrangian mechanics for the simulation. The outout from this simulation is then related to the injuries sustained by the victim, and to the objects known to have caused those injuries. A reconstruction of a fatal accident is presented to illustrate the methods used. | | Journal Title | Australasian Physical an Engineering Sciences in Medicine | | Conference Name | Conference Engineering and Physics in the Life Sciences | | Conference Location | Adelaide, Australia | | Conference Date | August 1984 | | Journal Volume (Issue) | 7(4) | | Page Range | 153-160 | | Page Count | 8 |
| Reference | | Gibson TJ, McLean AJ, McCaul KA (1984). Investigation of head injury mechanisms. Australasian Physical an Engineering Sciences in Medicine, 7(4), 153-160. |
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