Facts & Figures
In 2004, in the European Union, there were 42193 road fatalities and 1213300 accidents involving injuries. The socio-economic cost of road crashes to the EU 15 is twice the EU’s annual budget. The number of casualties is so important that it shall be reduced by all the available ways.
Project Summary
Numerical human body models could be used to assess injury risks in different scenarios, to improve safety in vehicles, regulations, and anthropomorphic dummies.
The current project proposes to give to passive safety players a tool capable of assessing real safety.It aims to improve finite element models of the human thorax including upper extremities based on the research, development, and validation of the models for the 5th, 50th, and 95th percentile of each gender.This project interacts with a worldwide project, called Global Human Body Model, which aims to create and maintain the world’s most biofidelic human body models.
Objectives of THOMO:
1. Development and maintenance of a biomechanical database focused on the thoracic segment.
2. Improvement of the knowledge of the geometrical and mechanical properties of the ribcage.
3. Development of numerical models, focusing on the validation of rib strain fields, in order to exhibit the rib fracture mechanisms.
The 5th, 50th and 95th percentile thorax models are considered, with help of scaling methods.
4. Mechanical and injury validation of the thorax models with tests coming from the literature or performed during the project. Use of personalization methods and optimization process to validate matched thorax models.
Main goals: definition of acceptable values for soft tissue material properties and improvement of mainly used scaling methods for biomechanical results.