Material Modeling and Development of a Realistic Dummy Head for Testing Blast Induced Traumatic Brain Injury

This work focuses on performing tests on various materials which have potentials of having similar mechanical and viscoelastic properties as live human brain tissue. The responses of these materials under different types of applied loading conditions were found. Four materials were tested for step response under the application of constant load, and they were compared to mathematical models developed to represent the properties (low-frequency screening). These materials also went through rheometry and DMA analysis (high-frequency screening), and the storage and loss modulus values were obtained. The results were then compared to brain matter properties found in the literature and the most suitable material was chosen to be used as a brain simulant in the surrogate head model. The head model consisted of a molded, single-piece skull surrogate into which the artificial brain was inserted. The brain was embedded with an array of thin piezoelectric sensors having sub-microsecond response. The head model was mounted to a commercially available neck model originally designed for automotive crash testing. The whole assembly was fitted into a blast tube specially designed to