Crack growth through low-cycle fatigue loading of material ARMOX 500T

This paper presents microstructure analysis of the creation and growth of cracks in uniaxial load. Analyse were done for steel Armox 500T (armour sheet). Results show that cracks are present quit early in steel lifetime. First micro cracks occur before the 200th cycles, whereby crack growth is progressive during further loading. Also it can be seen that after a certain number of cycles there are more longer cracks then shorter ones

Loading rate effect on mechanical properties of cervical spine ligaments

Mechanical properties of cervical spine ligaments are of great importance for an accurate finite element model when analyzing the injury mechanism. However, there is still little experimental data in literature regarding fresh human cervical spine ligaments under physiological conditions. The focus of the presented study is placed on three cervical spine ligaments that stabilize the spine and protect the spinal cord: the anterior longitudinal ligament, the posterior longitudinal ligament and the ligamentum flavum. The ligaments were tested within 24-48 hours after death, under two different loading rates. An increase trend in failure load, failure stress, stiffness and modulus was observed, but proved not to be significant for all ligament types. The loading rate had the highest impact on failure forces for all three ligaments (a 39.1 % average increase was found). The observed increase trend, compared to the existing increase trends reported in literature, indicates the importance of carefully applying the existing experimental data, especially when creating scaling factors. A better understanding of the loading rate effect on ligaments properties would enable better case-specific human modelling

Crack growth through low-cycle fatigue loading of material ARMOX 500T

This paper presents microstructure analysis of the creation and growth of cracks in uniaxial load. Analyse were done for steel Armox 500T (armour sheet). Results show that cracks are present quit early in steel lifetime. First micro cracks occur before the 200th cycles, whereby crack growth is progressive during further loading. Also it can be seen that after a certain number of cycles there are more longer cracks then shorter ones

Comparative study of potential whiplash injuries for different occupant seated positionsm during rear end accidents.

Purpose: Whiplash injuries to the cervical spine represent a considerable economic burden on society with medical conditions, in some cases persisting for more than a year. Numerous studies of whiplash injuries have been made for occupant normal seated position, leaving the analysis of neck injuries for out-of-normal positions not well documented. For that purpose, a detailed human cervical spine finite element model was developed. Methods:The analysis was made for four most common occupant seated positions, such as: Normal Position with the torso against the seat back and the head looking straight ahead, Torso Lean forward position with the torso away from the seat back for approximately 10°, Head Flexed position with the head flexed forward approximately 20° from the normal position and HeadFlexed with Torso Lean forward position with the head flexed forward approximately 20° and torso 10° from the normal position. Results: The comparative study included the analysis of capsular ligament deformation and the level of S-curvature of the cervical spine. The developed model predicted that Head Flexed seated position and Head-Flexed with Torso Lean forward seated position are most threatening for upper and lower cervical spine capsular ligament respectively. As for the level of S-curvature, the model predicted that Head-Flexed with Torso Lean forward seated position would be most prone to neck injuries associated with it. Conclusions:This study demonstrated that the occupant seated position has a significant influence on potential whiplash injuries

Parametric numerical study of wind barrier shelter

This work is focused on a parametric numerical study of the barrier's bar inclination shelter effect in crosswind scenario. The parametric study combines mesh morphing and design of experiments in automated manner. Radial Basis Functions (RBF) method is used for mesh morphing and Ansys Workbench is used as an automation platform. Wind barrier consists of five bars where each bar angle is parameterized. Design points are defined using the design of experiments (DOE) technique to accurately represent the entire design space. Three-dimensional RANS numerical simulation wasutilized with commercial software Ansys Fluent 14.5. In addition to the numerical study, experimental measurement of the aerodynamic forces acting on a vehicle is performed in order to define the critical wind disturbance scenario. The wind barrier optimization method combines morphing, an advanced CFD solver, high performance computing, and process automaters. The goal is to present a parametric aerodynamic simulation methodology for the wind barrier shelter that integrates accuracy and an extended design space in an automated manner. In addition, goal driven optimization is conducted for the most influential parameters for the wind barrier shelter