Institut Français des Sciences et Technologies des Transports, de l'Aménagement et des Réseaux

Type de document

COMMUNICATION AVEC ACTES INTERNATIONAL (ACTI)

Langue

anglais

Auteur

HAMEL ; LLARI ; PIERCECCHI-MARTIE ; ADALIAN ; LEONETTI ; THOLLON

Résumé / Abstract

The distinction between different causes which could explain the head injury sustained is a difficulty in a forensic investigation. The key question is often whether the head injury was the consequence of a fall, a blow or a fall caused by a blow. A better comprehension of the parameters influencing the mechanism of skull fracture could be helpful when attempting to distinguish between different causes of injury. Fall conditions and biological variability are reported in the literature to influence the mechanism of skull fracture. At the present time, there are no studies which investigate both the effect of fall and biological parameters. The aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of these parameters on the mechanism of skull fracture using a numerical approach. We focused on accidental fall from standing height. We estimated the head impact velocities with a multibody model and a finite element model was used to investigate the effect of the fall and biological parameters on skull fracture. The results show that the mechanism of skull fractures is influenced by at least two fall parameters: the impact velocity, the impact surface and two biological parameters: the cortical thickness and the cortical density. Forensic science, Skull fractures, Falls, Multibody dynamics, Finite element modeling