Hybrid Experimental-Modeling-Computational (HEMC) Concept: Determine Skull Fracture
Abstract
Impact thresholds for different mechanisms of functional impairments to the brain at cellular or tissue scale would be the preferred method to predict head injuries, but establishing such a comprehensive capability to understand dominant possible injury mechanisms under multi-axial stress-states and rates is currently not available. Until then, skull fracture could serve as an indication of head injury; thus, the ability to predict the initiation of skull fracture through finite element simulation can serve as an in silico tool for assessing various head-protection scenarios. Here, a concept previously developed for uniaxial compression was extended to represent the multi-axial loading condition of the in vivo skull by considering possible different dominant failure mechanisms of fracture during any low-rate impact event to the head, while also incorporating the influence of the heterogeneous microstructural details. A microstructurally inspired mechanism-based failure surface was used for failure thresholds, representing fracture initiation from different dominant mechanisms of skull failure. The failed cracked structure predicted by the simulation represented remarkably well the crack pattern from the corresponding experiment, when visualized through 3-D tomography, thus validating the implemented hybrid experimental-modeling-computational concept.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 15, 2020
- Accession Number
- AD1118637
Entities
People
- Stephen L. Alexander
- Tusit Weerasooriya
Organizations
- United States Army Research Laboratory