The Development Of A Three-Dimensional Finite Element Model Of The Human Brain And Frontal Impact Simulation And Analysis

With the numbers of passenger cars in our country increasing year by year, traffic accident is in a state of increasing and so is traffic injury. Field accident data have been shown that head injury takes a big proportion (more than 30%) of vehicle-related injuries. Because of its high rate of morbidity and mortality (68%), head injury brings heavy burden and great loss to our society and economy. So it is of significant to simulate head injury problems, and to study the injury mechanism in vehicular crash environment. The knowledge gained in such a study can help to design safer cars with the aim to reduce the incident of head injury. The main work of this research is outlined as the followings:1. The mathematical model of the human brain was developed based on the knowledge of the structure framework and material features of the brain, and also based on the literature in biomechanics of head injury.2. The three-dimensional geometrical data of the human brain was obtained from the spiral CT-scan images of a hospital patient by using the techniques of three-dimensional reconstruction and data transformation.3. The three-dimensional finite-element model was developed using a finite element preprocessor module of ANSYS by the meshing techniques. This model contains 26260 nodes and 30837 elements. It includes left and right hemispheres, left and right cerebellums, flax cerebri, tentorium cerebell, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), etc.Elasticity and viscoelasticity material models were used to characterize the material feature of the human brain.4. A commercially available software PAM-CRASH was used for model analysis. Time history of head acceleration and stress were outputted as model responses. Brain stress contours were also obtained from the impact simulation of the finite element model of the human brain.5. Conclusions were drawn based on the analyzed results of the impact simulation.This research provided an available model for head injury studies in space navigation, traffic accidents, injury identification in judicial decision, and in clinical treatment.