| Injury patterns of the human abdomen resulting from automotive crashes have been investigated using the publicly available spell out database in order to gain an enhanced understanding of abdominal injury. Results from this analysis reveal some important information that was not previously reported. The most common spell out 3 to 6 injuries of the abdomen mainly involving the solid organs: the liver, the spleen and the kidneys. These data indicate the need to emphasize solid organ injuries when considering the next generation of anthropomorphic test devices or mathematical models of the human abdomen. Consequently, a three-dimensional finite element model of the human abdomen (WSUHAM) has been developed and validated in order to achieve deeper insight into abdominal injury mechanisms through mathematical modeling techniques. This model includes a detailed representation of the liver, spleen, kidneys, spine, skin and major blood vessels. Although the model predicts reasonable kinematics for many impact scenarios, it has been noted that the most significant barrier in such work is the lack of material properties of soft tissues during the model development process. A series of experimental tests were conducted to determine the material properties and to estimate the injury criterion of the porcine liver, spleen and kidney. Results indicate that the ultimate compressive strain is independent of the loading rate and can be proposed as an injury criterion for solid abdominal organs. Additionally, the kidney is stiffer than the liver and the liver is stiffer than the spleen based on results from tensile tests of the renal capsule, compression tests of the isolated whole porcine liver and kidney, and compression tests of the parenchyma of porcine liver, spleen and kidneys. Material properties and failure criterion obtained from this series of experiments may be used in the future improvement of the WSUHAM. |
