Modeling Skeletal Injuries in Military Scenarios

Abstract

In this chapter, a review of the current state-of-the-art in techniques, efforts and ideas in the area of modeling skeletal injuries in military scenarios is provided. The review includes detailed discussions of the head, neck, spine, upper and lower extremity body regions. Each section begins with a description of the injury taxonomy reported for military scenarios for a particular body region and then a review of the computational modeling follows. In addition, a brief classification of modeling methods, tools and codes typically employed is provided and the processes and strategies for validation of models are discussed. Finally, we conclude with a short list of recommendations and observations for future work in this area. In summary, much work has been completed, however, there remains much to do in this research area. With continued efforts, modeling and simulation will continue to provide insight and understanding into the progression and time course of skeletal injuries in military scenarios with a high degree of spatial and temporal resolution. However, more work is needed to improve mechanistic-based modeling of injury mechanisms, such as fracture, and increase the inclusion of bio-variability into simulation frameworks.