The Influence of Impactor Mass on the Dynamic Response of the Hybrid III Headform and Brain Tissue Deformation

When determining head injury risks through event reconstruction, it is important to understand how individual impact characteristics influence the dynamic response of the head and its internal structures. The effect of impactor mass has not yet been analyzed in the literature. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of impactor mass on the dynamic impact response and brain tissue deformation. A 50th-percentile Hybrid III adult male head form was impacted using a simple pendulum system. Impacts to a centric and a non-centric impact location were performed with six varied impactor masses at a velocity of 4.0 m/s. The peak linear and peak angular accelerations were measured. A finite element model (University College Dublin Brain Trauma Model) was used to determine brain deformation, namely, peak maximum principal strain and peak von Mises stress. Impactor mass produced significant differences for peak linear acceleration for centric (F5,24 = 217.55, p = 0.0005) and non-centric (F5,24 = 161.98, p = 0.0005) impact locations, and for peak angular acceleration for centric (F5,24 = 52.51, p = 0.0005) and non-centric (F5,24 = 4.18, p = 0.007) impact locations. A change in impactor mass also had a significant effect on the peak maximum principal strain for centric (F5,24 = 11.04, p = 0.0005) and non-centric (F5,24 = 5.87, p = 0.001) impact locations, and for peak von Mises stress for centric (F5,24 = 24.01, p = 0.0005) and non-centric (F5,24 = 4.62, p = 0.004) impact locations. These results confirm that the impactor mass of an impact should be considered when determining risks and prevention of head and brain injury.