Construction of the Head Finite Element Model and Craniocerebral Injury in Facial Collision Accident

Abstract

This work aims at predicting and evaluating the biomechanical response of the facial impact on head injury in a crash accident. With the combination of CT/MRI medical imaging technique, the 50th percentile head biomechanical model with detailed cranio-facial structure is established. After which the validity of the model based on the classical experimental data from Nahum and Trosseille is verified. The model consists of 327,536 nodes and 1,337,903 units, and it has good biological fidelity. Based on the analysis of nine typical cases of facial traffic accidents, this work studies the propagation path of stress wave in the skull, then brain, von Mises stress and shear stress distribution are achieved. It is proved that facial structure can absorb a large amount of impact energy to protect the brain. The propagation path and distribution of stress wave in the skull and brain determine the mechanism of brain impact injury, which provides a theoretic basis for the diagnosis, treatment and protection of craniocerebral injury caused by facial impact.