Biofidelic child head FE model to simulate real world trauma.

Area of Science:

• Biomechanics
• Pediatric Injury Mechanisms
• Computational Modeling

Background:

• Human head biomechanics and injury mechanisms are extensively studied using engineering approaches and numerical models.
• Existing child head injury criteria derived from scaling adult data may not be accurate due to morphological and structural differences between adult and child heads.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare anthropometry and numerical simulations of a child head model derived from CT scans with a scaled adult head model.
• To evaluate the relevance of scaling adult head models for pediatric biomechanical analysis.

Main Methods:

• Development of a child head model using medical CT scans.
• Creation of a scaled adult head model using Mertz's normalization method.
• Comparative analysis of anthropometry and numerical simulations between the two models.

Main Results:

• Significant differences were observed between the biofidelic child head model and the scaled adult head model.
• The study highlights that scaling down adult head models is not a relevant approach for pediatric biomechanics.

Conclusions:

• Accurate investigation of child head injury mechanisms requires biofidelic and child-specific head geometry.
• Current methods of scaling adult data for pediatric applications are insufficient for precise biomechanical analysis.