Biomechanical Aspects of Head Injury

With the advent of high speed air and land transportation, engineers have become increasingly aware of the mechanical frangibility of the human body. Thus, we have seen the evolution of various isolating and load distributing devices ranging from seat belts and padded sun visors, to ejection seats, crash helmets, and acceleration couches. While there is a large amount of information available regarding the response of inanimate systems to vibration and impact, there is a comparable dearth of knowledge pertaining to the mechanical responses of biological systems. Therefore, the design of much supporting and protective equipment is often based on intuition because of the lack of information available about the mechanical behavior of the human body. In addition, such knowledge would be helpful in the treatment of injury by serving to identify the mechanism of trauma. Thus, both a rational design procedure for impact protection and a rational therapy for treatment of trauma cannot be developed until a quantitive description of the mechanical responses of the human body is obtained.