Numerical modelling of soft tissue injury due to impact

Abstract

Soft tissue injuries due to impact loading are a major health problem. The objective of this study was to simulate the impact of projectiles onto human body area and to show the validity of the model developed, based on a finite element model of the flash-ball impact on the human leg. To determine realistically the strain and stress in the biological soft tissues, anisotropic hyperelastic constitutive laws are necessary in the context of finite element analysis. The contact between impacting bodies is solved by the bi-potential method which consists of projecting the displacement equations onto the constraining directions associated to contact points. The time integration of the equation of motion is achieved by means of a first order algorithm. The algorithm is implemented into the finite element code FER/Impact using C++ Object Oriented Programming techniques. © 2010 International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering.