Aorta Related Projects

(Supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute )

• Experimental Model of Traumatic Aortic Rupture (TAR)

The goal of this project is to design and fabricate a model of TAR that is reasonably biofidelic and yet simple enough that can be accurately modeled computationally.

• Multilayer Properties of Aorta

In this project a material model will be developed that can describe the nonlinearity, rate dependency, and multi-layer nature of the aortic wall.

• Development of a Finite Element Model of TAR

In this project a finite element (FE) model of the physical model of TAR will be developed. The global FE model will be validated against the results of the experimental model.

Brain Related Projects

(Supported by the Southern Consortium for Injury Biomechanics and Temple University)

• Effect of TBI on Material Properties of Rat Brain Tissue

In this project, changes in the viscoelastic material properties of brain tissue due to traumatic diffuse axonal injury (DAI) are investigated.

• In Vivo and In Situ Material Properties of Brain Tissue

The objective of this project is to determine whether the in vivo brain properties differ from the in situ properties immediately post-mortem, and the excised tissue properties.

• Experimental and Computational Analysis of Brain Deformations in Linear Head Impact

In this study two-dimensional physical and finite element models of human head under linear deceleration are developed. The experimental strains and pressure during 55G impacts are measured to validate the element formulations used in the computational models.

• Head-Trunk Coordination during Linear Anterior-Posterior Translations

(Sponsored by a seed grant from Temple University )

This project looks into the influence of cerebellar disease and bilateral vestibular deficit along with visual inputs on head stabilization during a-p oscillatory linear acceleration at 0.60, 0.81, and 1.11 Hz.

• Biomechanical Efficiency of Pedicle Sizing Instrument

(Sponsored by DePuy Spine )

The goal of this research is to perform and analyze mechanical tests to quantify the biomechanical efficiency of pedicle screws used in lumbar fixations.

• Modeling of Human Flesh

(Sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory )

Various finite element formulations are investigated and compared to model human flesh and blood vessels including Lagrangian, Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE), and SPH.