Industry & Research Applications

What do space suits, orthopedic implants, airplane seats, cycling helmets have in common? There’s a human body at the center of them.

Through advanced human body models and expert engineering services, Elemance helps companies and researchers across industries assess the points where their technologies and procedures touch the human body. By answering your safety research questions about how your product interacts with a human body and its surroundings, we can help give you a better understanding of how well your product protects the human who uses it.

Discover the range of industries where the GHBMC virtual human body models are frequently applied to safety research, and get in touch with us to discover how Elemance’s tools and services can help you achieve your specific research and design objectives.

Aerospace

Elemance’s human body models and services have been used in both commercial aerospace and spaceflight safety research and design. Commercial aerospace applications include the design and assessment of seats and restraints and the simulation of hard landings and crashes.

In the area of spaceflight, Elemance can help assess the impact of rockets and related maneuvers on a human body. Our body models can also help evaluate the operational relevance and suitability of space suits and predict the risk of injury to astronauts in a wide range of scenarios and equipment.

Case study

Between 1976 and 2013, a combination of Hybrid III, THOR, and human volunteer tests were conducted using both the Horizontal Impulse Accelerator (HIA) and Vertical Deceleration Tower (VDT) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and USAF Armstrong.

These tests formed a matrix for finite element (FE) validation.  Simulations were performed using the Global Human Body Models Consortium (GHBMC) 50th male simplified occupant (M50-OS), Humanetics 50th percentile male Hybrid III, and NHTSA THOR 50th male FE models in LS-DYNA.

Validation for Spaceflight Testing

Predicting injury risks in spaceflight-like loading conditions.

Automotive

Born out of a consortium of automotive industries and researchers, GHBMC models are uniquely suited to study a wide range of automotive questions. Virtual models encompass different ages and sexes, as well as postures (occupant and pedestrian), and enable researchers to investigate more simulations than can be tested with more traditional methods.

Applications in the automotive industry can include everything from autonomous driving systems and evasive maneuvers to new seating configurations and safety equipment, such as seat belts and air bags. As virtual testing becomes a bigger part of certification requirements, conducting safety research with GHBMC models can help your company prepare for the changing regulatory landscape.

Healthcare

Elemance can help companies and researchers evaluate new medical devices and procedures across a wide range of scenarios in order to improve and protect patients of all kinds. Human body model simulations can answer biomechanical questions such as the range of motion after a disk replacement or the safety of surgical implants after a fall.

Whether you want to optimize a device’s design, learn about its effect on surrounding tissues or assess the risk of injury, GHBMC virtual human body models provide accurate ways to study your medical device. If there’s a safety research or design question that’s been troubling you, Elemance’s team of expert engineers can put their know-how to work for you.

Disc replacement integrity

Performance evaluation of a C5-6 disc replacement during an aircraft impact using the GHBMC M50 detailed occupant.

Case study

A computational finite element analysis was performed to evaluate the effects of C5-6 cervical total disc replacement (CTDR) on cross-sectional neck loading and cervical spine kinematics during a simulated rotary-wing aircraft ground impact.

The neck of a human body finite element model was modified to include a C5-6 interbody arthroplasty with either a Prestige ST or ProDisc-C CTDR. The adjacent-level, cross-sectional loading for the C5-6 segment was not greatly altered by the CTDRs, as indicated by CORrelation and Analysis (CORA) ratings of 0.988 for the Prestige ST and 0.909 for the ProDisc-C. The CTDRs increased the interbody range of motion, altering both the interbody and cervical facet loading. While the facet capsules experienced increased tension in both CTDR simulations, established injury threshold levels were not reached. Overall, cervical arthroplasty at the C5-6 level did not appear to have a deleterious effect on the dynamic neck response during a simulated rotary-wing aircraft impact.

Military

Elemance’s portfolio of military applications is extensive, covering the range of our other applications–automotive, aerospace and healthcare–but in specific military contexts. Elemance can help you study combat and training-based scenarios like vehicle crashes, under-body blast, ejections and parachute landings, as well as assessing equipment design and the performance of body armor, helmets, seats and harnesses.

Some of our areas of expertise include Behind Armor Blunt Trauma (BABT), head injuries, Underbody Blast (UBB), ejections, hard landings, and different types of blast related injuries. If you can fight in it, we can study it.

Case study

Military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past several years have resulted in the increased exposure of military personnel to improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and road side bombs.

Injuries caused by under body blasts are often debilitating, resulting in increased healthcare expenses and a reduced quality of life. Injury prediction for UBB events continues to be a challenge due to the limited availability of UBB‐specific test studies and injury criteria. This study focused on the pelvic injury response of the 50th percentile male (M50-O) Global Human Body Models Consortium (GHBMC) Finite Element model.

Simulation of Under Body Blast Impacts

Exploring the repercussions of debilitating under body blasts in theaters of war

Sports

The GHBMC human body models have extensive applications in the sports industry, providing an accurate way to assess protective equipment and the sporting environment. Our family of body models can help evaluate how sporting equipment–such as helmets, shin guards and face masks–fits and performs on a wide variety of human body types.

Elemance can also help determine the effects that the environment has on an athlete, whether playing on a field or a court. GHBMC human body models can demonstrate how an athlete interacts with their surroundings and how those surroundings influence their experience, such as their risk of injury.

Play Smart. Play Safe.

The NFL and Wake Forest University develop open-source finite element (FE) models of four football helmets.

Case study

The team at Wake Forest University and Elemance developed a finite element model of one population football helmet, the Schutt Air XP Pro model.

As part of the NFL’s Play Smart. Play Safe. initiative, the NFL pledged $60 million toward the understanding of the biomechanics of head injuries in professional football and to create incentives for helmet manufacturers, small businesses, entrepreneurs, universities and others to develop and commercialize new and improved protective equipment, including helmets.

The work was done through a process of “reverse engineering” the helmet; from image-based geometry development, to extensive material characterization, and finally model validation to ensure the simulated impacts match real-world experiments. The helmet model was fit onto various head forms and simulated through a series of nearly 70 matched simulation-to-experimental tests, which included impacts of similar severity as those that occur on the field. These virtual helmet models give researchers an additional tool to study the relationship between various in-game modes of impact and the associated risk of head injury.

What About Your Safety Research?

If you’re interested in how Elemance can help tackle your specific project or safety research and design obstacles, we’d love to talk with you about your particular needs. Get in touch, and we’ll explore the possibilities.

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Elemance strives to provide truly human-centered design solutions to enhance the protection and quality of life.