A joint CADR and School of Engineering Seminar by Professor Michael Gilchrist, was held on 11th December 2015 at School of Engineering.
As a part of CADR seminar series, an interesting seminar on 'impact biomechanics and design of head protection devices' was held at Mathematics Seminar Room (FNB 156). The talk was by Professor Michael D. Gilchrist from University College Dublin, School of Mechanical Engineering, Dublin, Ireland.
The presentation describes the development and use of experimentally-informed, computer simulation methods which could constitute a valuable set of forensic tools for investigating cases of impact trauma that involve lesions such as laceration, neurotrauma and skull fracture. The use of finite element models and multi-body dynamics models relies on knowing physical properties including kinematic joint stiffnesses, the strength of biological materials such as cranial bone, skin, muscle and neural tissue. Having accurate information on the rate dependent properties of biological tissue and using sufficiently sophisticated models, it becomes possible to relate the extent of injuries to causative forces. This method could help forensic pathologists to infer the mechanical causes of various lesions and to determine whether probable causes of fracture were accidental or intentional. Similarly, it can also assist engineers to design more effective head protection systems.