Injury Biomechanics

Injury biomechanics research began in the automotive and aerospace industries and has developed to become a well-established area of science. We have expertise on how mechanical forces interact with the human body and the types of injuries that can be sustained when the forces exceed the tolerance of human tissues. This expertise can be applied to:

• Investigate injuries to determine the most likely cause

• Predict injuries from potential scenarios

• Provide injury assessments during the design of products and environments to improve injury prevention

Each project or case is unique and we provide advice on the most appropriate methods for your particular requirements, which can include:

• Review of injury scenario - environment, subject and injuries

• Record scene - using 3D laser scanning 

• Research - literature search and review of similar incidents, products, environments and injuries

• Physical reconstruction - using a motion analysis laboratory and volunteers 

• Computer reconstruction - using 3D laser scanning data of the incident scene and human body modelling

• Analysis of results - using human injury tolerance values to predict likely injury outcomes

• 3D modelling - of final scenarios with predicted injury outcomes for each scenario

Computer reconstruction of a balcony fall

​This project involved an injury biomechanics investigation into a fatal fall from a balcony. This included 3D laser scanning at the scene, 3D modelling and human body modelling of the deceased to attempt to match with the CCTV frames of the exit body position relative to the balcony (see articles in News).

The final output consists of a full 3D scene model and a biofidelic human body model simulated to fall under gravity from the camera matched (CCTV) exit body position. This project was a feasibility study and further work with many more human body model simulations would be required to provide more meaningful and reliable results.