Impact forces in backward falls: Subject-specific video-based rigid body simulation of backward falls.

A critical missing component in the study of real-world falls is the ability to accurately determine impact forces resulting from the fall. Subject-specific rigid body dynamic (RBD) models calibrated to video captured falls can quantify impact forces and provide additional insights into injury risk factors. RBD models were developed based on five backward falls captured on surveillance video in long-term care facilities in British Columbia, Canada. Model joint stiffness and initial velocities were calibrated to match the kinematics of the fall and contact forces were calculated. The effect of joint stiffnesses (neck, lumbar spine, hip, and knee joint) on head contact forces were determined by modifying the calibrated stiffness values ±25%. Fall duration, fall trajectories, and maximum velocities showed a close match between fall events and simulations. The maximum value of pelvic velocity difference between Kinovea (an open-source software 2D digitization software) and Madymo multibody modeling was found to be 6% ± 21.58%. Our results demonstrate that neck and hip stiffness values have a non-significant yet large effect on head contact force (t(3) = 1, p = 0.387 and t(3) = 2, p = 0.138), while lower effects were observed for knee stiffness, and the effect of lumbar spine stiffness was negligible. The subject-specific fall simulations constructed from real world video captured falls allow for direct quantification of force outcomes of falls and may have applications in improving the assessment of fall-induced injury risks and injury prevention methods.

The biomechanical implications of neck position in cervical contusion animal models of SCI.

Large animal contusion models of spinal cord injury are an essential precursor to developing and evaluating treatment options for human spinal cord injury. Reducing variability in these experiments has been a recent focus as it increases the sensitivity with which treatment effects can be detected while simultaneously decreasing the number of animals required in a study. Here, we conducted a detailed review to explore if head and neck positioning in a cervical contusion model of spinal cord injury could be a factor impacting the biomechanics of a spinal cord injury, and thus, the resulting outcomes. By reviewing existing literature, we found evidence that animal head/neck positioning affects the exposed level of the spinal cord, morphology of the spinal cord, tissue mechanics and as a result the biomechanics of a cervical spinal cord injury. We posited that neck position could be a hidden factor contributing to variability. Our results indicate that neck positioning is an important factor in studying biomechanics, and that reporting these values can improve inter-study consistency and comparability and that further work needs to be done to standardize positioning for cervical spinal cord contusion injury models.

Effect of Impact Parameters on a Unilateral Contusion Model of Spinal Cord Injury in a Virtual Population of Non-Human Primates.

Non-human primate (NHP) spinal cord injury experiments exhibit high intersubject variability in biomechanical parameters even when a consistent impact protocol is applied to each subject. Optimizing impact parameters to reduce this variability through experiments is logistically challenging in NHP studies. Finite element models provide a complimentary tool to inform experimental design without the cost and complexity of live animal studies. A morphologically variable virtual population (N = 10) of NHPs quantified the interaction of morphological variability and different impact conditions in a unilateral cervical contusion, including impactor size (4 and 5 mm) and mediolateral alignment over the cord midline (0.5 and 1 mm). We explored the effect of these conditions on the magnitude and intersubject variability of impact force and cord lateral slippage. The study demonstrated that a 1-mm mediolateral alignment maximized peak forces and minimized lateral slippage. A 5-mm impactor was beneficial in increasing peak forces, whereas a 4-mm impactor reduced lateral slippage. Comparatively, intersubject variability in peak forces and lateral slippage were minimized with a 0.5-mm mediolateral alignment. The study highlights that impact parameters selected based on peak forces may not be beneficial in reducing variability. The study also showed that morphology was an important contributor to variability. Integrating morphology variability through a virtual population in an injury simulation to investigate mechanistic research questions will more effectively capture the heterogeneity of experiments and provide better insights for effective experimental design.

Understanding the Stress Relaxation Behavior of Polymers Reinforced with Short Elastic Fibers.

Although it has been experimentally shown that the addition of short-fibers slows the stress relaxation process in composites, the underlying phenomenon is complex and not well understood. Previous studies have proposed that fibers slow the relaxation process by either hindering the movement of nearby polymeric chains or by creating additional covalent bonds at the fiber-matrix interface that must be broken before bulk relaxation can occur. In this study, we propose a simplified analytical model that explicitly accounts for the influence of polymer viscoelasticity on shear stress transfer to the fibers. This model adequately explains the effect of fiber addition on the relaxation behavior without the need to postulate structural changes at the fiber-matrix interface. The model predictions were compared to those from Monte Carlo finite-element simulations, and good agreement between the two was observed.

Modeling and Predicting the Stress Relaxation of Composites with Short and Randomly Oriented Fibers.

The addition of short fibers has been experimentally observed to slow the stress relaxation of viscoelastic polymers, producing a change in the relaxation time constant. Our recent study attributed this effect of fibers on stress relaxation behavior to the interfacial shear stress transfer at the fiber-matrix interface. This model explained the effect of fiber addition on stress relaxation without the need to postulate structural changes at the interface. In our previous study, we developed an analytical model for the effect of fully aligned short fibers, and the model predictions were successfully compared to finite element simulations. However, in most industrial applications of short-fiber composites, fibers are not aligned, and hence it is necessary to examine the time dependence of viscoelastic polymers containing randomly oriented short fibers. In this study, we propose an analytical model to predict the stress relaxation behavior of short-fiber composites where the fibers are randomly oriented. The model predictions were compared to results obtained from Monte Carlo finite element simulations, and good agreement between the two was observed. The analytical model provides an excellent tool to accurately predict the stress relaxation behavior of randomly oriented short-fiber composites.