Development of a System for Analyzing Common Laceration Generation Mechanisms

Lacerations occur frequently in numerous common environments, but the mechanisms by which they are generated remain unclear. This makes it difficult for designers to create products that can prevent such injuries. Although a significant number of studies have dealt with injury prevention from the standpoint of avoiding bone fractures, lacerations have yet to be thoroughly investigated and a scientific approach to laceration prevention is urgently required. In this paper, we describe a system for analyzing the dynamic characteristics of human-skin like materials, such as pigskin, in an effort to understand laceration generation mechanisms. The system consists of a high speed camera and a drop impact device. Additionally, we developed a finite element model (FEM) for use in determining the inner behavior of materials via computer simulation. According to statistical analysis using injury surveillance data, a typical situation involves a collision between a victim´s head and the edge of an object, such as a table, chair, bathtub, or other such item. Accordingly, we conducted experiments aimed at determining the dynamic characteristic of pigskin, which is a substitute for human skin, when it collides with various materials. This paper reports our experimental results and discusses laceration generation mechanisms in order to obtain scientific knowledge that can be used when designing product safety features.