Date of Award

8-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Bioengineering

Committee Chair/Advisor

Dr. John DesJardins

Committee Member

Dr. Gregory Batt (co-chair)

Committee Member

Dr. Jeremy Mercuri

Committee Member

Dr. Joseph Singapogu

Abstract

Concussions and traumatic brain injury (TBI) remains a significant public health concern, especially in American football, where repeated head impacts pose long-term risks to athlete health. While current helmet testing standards rely heavily on the Hybrid III surrogate headform to evaluate protective performance, these surrogate models lack anatomical accuracy and exclude the presence of a brain component, limiting their ability to capture the true mechanics of concussion. To address this limitation, this research developed and validated a novel inverted impact testing method that allows the impact testing of a Hybrid III headform and a cadaveric specimen. Additionally, this fixture preserves natural head-neck articulation and enables realistic evaluation of ovine and cadaveric specimens. Using wireless accelerometer arrays placed in both the skull and brain, this study quantified skull and brain kinematics across multiple impact scenarios.

The experimental methodology was applied to both bare head and helmeted conditions, and comparisons were made to Hybrid III headform impacts under equivalent conditions. The results demonstrated consistent differences in angular velocity linear acceleration and rotational acceleration between the sensors within the skull and the sensors within the brain, highlighting the insufficiency of skull-only measurements in concussion research. Helmeted conditions reduced kinematic magnitudes overall, but skull-brain discrepancies persisted. Additionally, ovine models were used to further evaluate the fidelity and repeatability of the inverted impact method.

Author ORCID Identifier

0009-0007-2737-5944

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