Development of a high resolution human brain finite element model for restructuring Traumatic Brain Injury

High-resolution finite element models (HRFEM) simulating human heads can be utilized to quantify Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) threshold due to a direct (e.g. impact) or an indirect (e.g. blast) dynamic shock. With the complex brain structure, for an accurate investigation of the influence of such brain injuries, accurate realistic geometrical brain structures must be developed. The objective of the current simulation study is to present the steps undertaken to generate a high resolution finite element model for human brains that will assist in studying the effects of a wide a spectrum mechanical insult to human heads. In this study, an MRI-T1 DICOM data files for healthy male head have been used for segmenting and extracting the brain structure. The segmented brain model has been meshed using tetrahedral elements with maximum size of 2 mm. This HRFEM for the brain was composed of 116,394 nodes and 607,457 elements. The model was then subjected to a simulated shock wave of 0.3 MPa peak pressure from anterior direction. This was simulated using the ConWep module available in the LSDYNA explicit finite element modeling software. Three dimensional plots of maximum pressure and maximum stress clearly demonstrated significant effects of the dynamic shock load. The generated HRFEM for the brain and the simulation results demonstrate the capability of the modeling approach in describing the brain response under shock-type loads, including those caused by blast wave.