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Numerical Simulation for Traumatic Brain Injury Assessment
Abstract
Traumatic Blast Injury (TBI) associated with the human head is caused by exposure to a blast loading, resulting in decreased level of consciousness, skull fracture, lesions or death. This paper presents the blast loading of a human head form from a free field blast with the end goal of providing insight into how TBI develops in the human head. The developed head model contains all the major components of the human head, the skull, brain: including the tentorium, flax and grey and white matter. A nonlinear finite element analysis was employed to perform the simulation using the Arbitray-Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) finite element method. The simulation captures the propagation of the blast wave through the air, its interaction with the skull and its transition into the brain matter. The model quantifies the pressure histories of the blast wave from the explosive source, to the overpressure on the skull and the intra-cranial pressure. This paper discusses the technical approach used to model the head and outcome from the analysis and the implication on brain injury.