About the Project
The project will develop an instrumented synthetic wrist surrogate for assessing injury risks from impact. Applications for the surrogate will include injury assessment and prevention in high-risk sports such as snowboarding, roller blading and boxing.
Aims and objectives
Injuries are common within sport, with a high incidence of wrist injuries in activities such as snowboarding, roller sports, mountain biking, diving and boxing. These injuries can result in time away from competition, training and work. In addition, many injuries can be prevented (or reduced in severity) by using personal protective equipment, which is highly cost effective when compared to direct medical costs. For such equipment to be effective, a full understanding of injury mechanisms, load ranges, human tissue tolerances and material performance, is essential. Assessment of injury risk and prevention measures typically involves an impact test with a cadaveric wrist or synthetic wrist surrogate. Cadaveric wrists are not suitable for test houses to certify protective equipment, as they require specialist storage and testing facilities.
Surrogates are available for other industries - such as crash test dummies for automotive and defence - but they are primarily designed for assessing debilitating injury and fatality risks, which are quite different testing scenarios to those encountered in sport. For this reason, their geometry and joints are oversimplified and do not truly represent anthropometric segments, with sensors primarily focusing on head and spinal injuries. The materials selected are often too stiff and do not allow protective equipment to deform under impact, as would be the case when worn by a human. A realistic wrist surrogate is required for assessing sports injury risks. The surrogate should have a representative joint, with skin and tissue simulants, synthetic bones and appropriate instrumentation. An improved wrist surrogate designed for sport would allow for better assessment and design of protective equipment in terms of, i) how it fits to the body and distributes pressure, ii) how loads are transferred to the body and iii) the proportion of energy absorbed by the equipment and body. Therefore, the aim of the proposed project is to develop a human wrist surrogate for assessing the risk of injury during impact, with the following objectives:
1.To review literature on wrist injury mechanisms, bone, tissue and skin simulants, development, modelling and instrumentation of impact surrogates, and anthropometrics of the hand, wrist and forearm.
2.To determine the size and shape of the main components of the hand, wrist and forearm, identify candidate bone, skin and other tissue simulants.
3.To develop synthetic skin and tissue simulants for a wrist surrogate.
4.To develop a finite element model of a wrist impact surrogate utilising the skin and tissue simulants.
5.To fabricate a wrist impact surrogate with inbuilt instrumentation.
6.To use the surrogate to assess sport impact scenarios, and make recommendations on how best to develop and utilise surrogates to reduce injury.
In the first year, the student will conduct a literature review, and develop skin and tissue simulants using polymer processing and testing equipment. The second year will focus on using these simulant material parameters to develop a finite element model of the surrogate. The model will be used to further develop the materials and geometry of the surrogate in preparation for fabrication. The final year will initially focus on the fabrication of the full-scale wrist impact surrogate, which will then be used to assess injury risks and prevention measures.
This project would especially suit candidates looking to pursue a career in academia, but also those interested in entering the Sports Engineering industry, particularly in the design and development of tests for safety equipment.
The supervisory team for this project will be Dr Thomas Allen, Dr Keith Winwood, Dr Weizhuo Wang, and Dr Christopher Liauw
The closing date for applications is 31st January 2017.
To apply, please use the form on our web page: http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/apply/postgraduate-research-course/ - please note, CVs alone will not be accepted.
For informal enquiries, please contact: [Email Address Removed]
Please quote the Project Reference in all correspondence.
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