Head Impact Injury Mitigation to Vehicle Occupants: An Investigation of Interior Padding and Head Form Modeling Options against Vehicle Crash

Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) occur approximately 1.7 million times each year in the U.S., with motor vehicle crashes as the second leading cause of TBI-related hospitalizations, and the first leading cause of TBI-related deaths among specific age groups. Several studies have been conducted to better understand the impact on the brain in vehicle crash scenarios. However, the complexity of the head is challenging to replicate numerically the head response during vehicle crash and the resulting traumatic Brain Injury. Hence, this study aims to investigate the effect of vehicle structural padding and head form modeling representation on the head response and the resulting causation and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). In this study, a simplified and complex head forms with various geometries and materials including the skull, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), neck, and muscle were considered to better understand and predict the behavior of each part and their effect on the response of the brain during an impact scenario. The effect of padding thickness was also considered to further analyze the interaction of vehicle structure and the head response. The numeral results revealed that the responses of the head skull and the brain under impact load were highly influenced by the padding thickness, head skull material modeling and assumptions, and neck compliance. Generally, the current work could be considered an alternative insight to understand the correlation between vehicle structural padding, head forms, and materials modeling techniques, and TBI resulted from a vehicle crash.

Improved Thermal Comfort of Helmets for Two-Wheeler Motorcycles: Technical Note

A helmet used by motorcyclists is always of critical importance for the safety of the rider. A well-designed helmet should be able to absorb as much energy as possible and to diffuse it to the whole helmet during an impact. This project is intended to improve the design features with respect to thermal comfort of Helmet shell. The vital design features of helmets are extent of protection, ISO head form, and peripheral visions. Thermal discomfort can cause rider fatigue thereby reducing the overall concentration during driving. Various design concepts, such as adding ventilation holes, increasing clearance between the helmet shell and the head and covering the shell with reflective materials, are used to improve the thermal properties. The existing design of helmets does not account for the thermal comfort of the helmet shell into consideration so, a new design prototype is developed. At this stage, attention was also paid to structural safety, appearance and manufacturability. The thermal comforts that can be derived from this design are significantly improved over other commercially available helmets.

Development of a Low-Cost Mechanical Model of a Human Head

In recent years, interest has developed in Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) and the related concussions that occur in sports at both professional and amateur levels. Subsequently there is interest in developing new types of athletic helmets to both absorb energy to detect and reduce concussions. To test these helmets, an appropriate head form must be used that will fit the helmet and also exhibit the dynamic properties of the human head. While much effort has gone into creating biofidelic heads containing instrumentation for automotive crash testing, these heads can cost upwards of $10,000. The goal of this project is to create a head form for a few hundred dollars with the appropriate dynamic properties for testing linear and angular accelerations of a helmet. The specific goals of this project are to create a head form with the following characteristics: 1) External size and shape that will properly fit a hockey helmet; 2) Weight representative of an adult head; 3) Robust enough to withstand a thousand impact tests. The manufacture of the head form and the verification that the design goals are described.

Dynamic Analysis of Head-Form Test on Actual Automotive Windscreen

The head-form test on actual automotive windscreen with the analytic method of explicit dynamics is researched in this paper. Based on the experiment specification, the geometric models of head-form weight and laminated glass for actual automotive windscreen are built, and the loading conditions of the head-form test are also acquired. According to the analysis results, the process of crack initiation & propagation and the failure mechanism in laminated glass are studied, which is of great significance for the evaluation on laminated glass for actual automotive windscreen.