Modeling of Whiplash Injuries using CFD
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master Thesis
Master Thesis
Program
Publicerad
2008
Författare
Liu, Feng
Yang, Junfeng
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
Whiplash injuries occur usually in low-speed rear-end collision and often cause pain in the neck region as well other neurological symptoms. Aldman (1986) proposed a pressure gradient injury mechanism. The experiment study using pig indicates that the peak pressure transient is found at the middle of the cervical spinal canal, and nerve tissues injuries are detected as well. Present study models a volunteer test carried out by Ono et al (2000), to investigate the pressure change in the cervical spinal canal of human using CFD simulation. The internal vertebral venous plexus is modeled as a 3-D pipe, which is radically rigid but axially flexible. The inner volume change of the spinal canal is analyzed based on the kinematics model of the whiplash motion, which is built on the measured cervical vertebral rotational angle in the volunteer test. With the help of Fluent, the CFD simulation shows that the negative pressure can be found at the middle of the cervical spinal canal when the neck reaches the maximal S-shape. The setup of the boundary conditions and the flow type of the blood is discussed in the report. The top of the internal vein should be assumed no blood exchanging during the whiplash. Moreover, the value of the pressure transient increases the loss coefficient of the intervertebral veins. Though the blood flow is modeled as laminar flow, the turbulent flow model also gives a reasonable result. Thus, boundary conditions and flow type of the blood in the cervical venous plexus are two valuable further works. Moreover, the geometry model and kinematics model should be refined in the future.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Teknisk mekanik , Applied Mechanics