BAFHTA

The problem

The biomechanics of traumatic injuries of different parts of the human body, as a consequence of road crashes, falling, contact sports, and military environments have been studied for decades. In particular, traumatic brain injury (TBI), the so-called “silent epidemic”, contributes to worldwide death and disability more than any other traumatic insult (circa 69 million individuals yearly, Dewan et al. 2019), justifying the relevance of this research topic. Despite its great importance, the vast majority of studies in the field do not take into account the sex aspect regarding the morphology and physiology of women, which indeed differs from men (Gupte et al. 2019) and may result in a distinctive outcome for a given traumatic event. Sex also plays a role in the various conditions that precede an accident (ergonomics, psychology, etc.), not forgetting also other issues, such as endocrinology that affect the recovery of the female brain compared to the male one.

Addressing the problem

Numerical methods were always important in the field of injury evaluation and biomechanics, in order to develop affordable and effective countermeasures for protection towards disability and fatalities reduction (Fernandes et al. 2018, 2020). Ethically, it is extremely difficult to conduct human-subject studies to understand injury mechanisms and establish associated tolerance values. For this reason, numerical simulation techniques have been widely used to study how the human body responds to trauma, attaining in-depth perceptions of injury biomechanics, thus minimizing the need for testing human subjects. One of the greatest challenges facing the computational engineering community is to extend the success of computational mechanics to fields outside traditional engineering, in particular to biology, the biomedical sciences and medicine. Worldwide, a considerable number of research groups focus on developing reliable numerical biomechanical models of different body parts. The continuous improvement of CPU architectures and processing capacities have been allowing continuous improvement in modelling and simulation techniques, providing progressively higher detail levels at different size-scales. Bones, muscles, vessels and other biological items can now be modelled using advanced finite element formulations, meshless methods, solid-fluid interactions, complex constitutive laws, realistic boundary conditions and/or combining different methods (hybrid simulations), providing an excellent platform for medical staff to help evaluating clinical conditions.

The Challenge

Experimental techniques for biomechanical testing have been also improving dramatically over the last few years. During the last 12 months, new reports emerged providing new visions about brain tissue characterization (Alshareef et al. 2020; Budday et al. 2020), including sex distinction and obliging current numerical models to be quickly updated, validated and improved to match new biomechanical data. In a similar trend, in the age of information, big data in healthcare gives access to vast quantities of information, digitally accessible, including injury reports from different ages, sexes, clinical history and geographies. A two-fold challenge is then posed, requiring bio-fidelity and personalized numerical models for a large spectrum of individuals.

Competences

In an interdisciplinary subject, crossing medicine, numerical methods, biomechanics and mechanics of materials, the (gender-balanced) team comprises mechanical engineers with a strong background in numerical methods applied to biomechanics, medical doctors, designers and a significant number of junior research fellows bridging the several related areas in order to boost a new generation of young researchers in the field. The team has been developing the YEAHM (Yet Another Head Model), which has proved successful in accident reconstruction, injury prediction and protective gear development (Varela et al, 2020).

About the project

Expected results

Current Team

Advisory team

Barclay Morrison III

Astrid Linder

Antonio Bastos Leite

Marius Ptak

Diogo Ramalho

Thomas Kaminski

David MacManus

Ines Moreno Gonzalez

Former team members

Eduardo Noronha, PhD

Gabriel Serra, Msc

Gustavo Carmo, Msc

Jeroen Grigioni

Sofia Caldeira, Msc

Sofia Maio

Marco Gomes, Msc

Afonso Carvalho, Msc

Joana Pinto, Msc

Publications

Papers

Conferences

Posters

Scientific Events

Thesis

Computer applications & models

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