Bending Response of Human Skull-Beams as a Function of Loading Rate and Loading-Tip Geometry
Abstract
Impacts to the head can transfer energy to the skull and brain, leading to injuries such as skull fracture and traumatic brain injury. The presence of a cranial fracture has been shown to be associated with a higher incidence of intracranial lesions, neurological deficit, and poor medical outcomes. Therefore, it is important to understand the effect of impact on the mechanical response of human skull. Thin skull-beam specimens were fabricated from a postmortem human subject donor skull. The beam specimens were loaded in three-point bend to quantify the response of the skull deformation as a function of loading history. Deformation and failure of the skull-beam during loading were quantified using digital image correlation. Pre- and posttested (27 cubic micrometers and 67 cubic micrometers voxel resolution, respectively) specimens were scanned using a micro-CT scanner for quantification of the 3D microstructure. This allows for creation of computational meshes for each specimen for computational modeling of the deformation response and failure mechanisms. Understanding the skull deformation and fracture process with associated mechanisms in this loading configuration allows for the development of mechanism-based failure criteria for use in computational modeling of the effect of indenting/impacting. The experimental techniques used and deformation and failure results are presented.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 2021
- Accession Number
- AD1142091
Entities
People
- C. A. Gunnarsson
- Stephen L. Alexander
- Tusit Weerasooriya
Organizations
- United States Army Combat Capabilities Development Command