Biomechanical modelling of head impacts.

There is a need for a reliable numerical head model that accurately simulates the biomechanical response of the head after an impact to supportthe study of head protection, to test different hypotheses and to carryout parameters studies. There are already different numerical head models available but each of them without a good representation of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). This CSF however, has a large influence on the movement of the brain relative to the skull and consequently also on the different injury mechanisms. Therefore the main goal of this PhD is to improve the representation of the CSF and the interaction between fluid andstructure (CSF and brain). For this improvement, a combination of finite elements and finite volumes will be used together with a new technique, called smooth particle hydrodynamics. Finally, this PhD will result ina new numerical head model that can be used for helmet optimization andto define new head injury criteria.

Keywords:Head impact modelling, Finite element method

Disciplines:Biomechanics

Project type:PhD project