The risk of fracture to the tibia from a fragment simulating projectile
File(s)
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Penetrating injuries due to fragments energised by an explosive event are life threatening and are associated with poor clinical and functional outcomes. The tibia is the long bone most affected in survivors of explosive events, yet the risk of penetrating injury to it has not been quantified. In this study, an injury-risk assessment of penetrating injury to the tibia was conducted using a gas-gun system with a 0.78-g cylindrical fragment simulating projectile. An ovine tibia model was used to generate the injury-risk curves and human cadaveric tests were conducted to validate and scale the results of the ovine model. The impact velocity at 50% risk (±95% confidence intervals) for EF1+, EF2+, EF3+, and EF4+ fractures to the human tibia – using the modified Winquist-Hansen classification – was 271 ± 30, 363 ± 46, 459 ± 102, and 936 ± 182 m/s, respectively. The scaling factor for the impact velocity from cadaveric ovine to human was 2.5. These findings define the protection thresholds to improve the injury outcomes for fragment penetrating injury to the tibia.
Date Issued
2020-02
Date Acceptance
2019-11-05
Citation
Journal of The Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials, 2020, 102
ISSN
1751-6161
Publisher
Elsevier
Journal / Book Title
Journal of The Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials
Volume
102
Copyright Statement
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This manuscript is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Sponsor
The Royal British Legion
The Royal British Legion
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Grant Number
BMPF_P60304
Centre for Blast Injury Studie
EP/S021752/1
Subjects
Fracture
Injury curve
Leg
Lower extremity
Penetrating injury
Survival analysis
Biomedical Engineering
0903 Biomedical Engineering
0912 Materials Engineering
0913 Mechanical Engineering
Publication Status
Published online
Article Number
103525
Date Publish Online
2019-11-06