Principles of Biomechanics

Ronald Huston

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781000611786
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Forensic Science
• Index: Law

Research and study in biomechanics has grown dramatically in recent years, to the extent that students, researchers, and practitioners in biomechanics now outnumber those working in the underlying discipline of mechanics itself. Filling a void in the current literature on this specialized niche, Principles of Biomechanics provides readers with a so

1

Introduction

What is biomechanics? Biomechanics is simply mechanics. Mechanics refers to those studies in engineering and applied physics concerned with forces and motion. Biomechanics is mechanics applied with living systems—principally the human body.

While biomechanics is simply mechanics, and while mechanics can be a relatively simple subject (at least conceptually), the application with living systems is usually far from simple. Fabricated and inert systems are much less complex than living systems (or biosystems). With biosystems, the geometry is irregular and not easily represented by elementary figures or shapes. With biosystems, the material properties are inhomogeneous, anisotropic, and nonlinear. Indeed, biosystems are composed of solids, liquids, and gases with nonlinear viscoelastic and non-Newtonian characteristics. Biosystems present students and researchers with an uncountable number of challenging problems in modeling, simulation, and analysis. The aim of this book is to provide methods for simplifying and solving these problems.

1.1 Principal Areas of Biomechanics

Biomechanics may be conveniently divided into three principal areas: (1) performance, (2) injury, and (3) rehabilitation. Performance refers to the way living systems (primarily human beings) do things. It includes routine movements such as walking, sitting, standing, reaching, throwing, kicking, and carrying objects. It also refers to internal movement and behavior such as blood flow, fluid circulation, heart and muscle mechanics, and skeletal joint kinematics. In addition, performance connotes global activities such as operating vehicles or tools, and sport mechanics.

Injury refers to failure and damage of biosystems as in broken bones, torn muscles, ligaments, and tendons, and organ impairment. Injury studies thus include evaluation of tissue properties. They also include studies of accidents and the design of protective devices.

Rehabilitation refers to the recovery from injury and disease. Rehabilitation thus includes all applications of mechanics in the health care industries encompassing such areas as design of corrective and assist devices, development of implants, design of diagnostic devices, and tissue healing mechanics.

1.2 Approach in This Book

Books could be written on each of these topics. Indeed, many have already been written (see Refs. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]). It is thus impossible to encompass biomechanics in a single book. We therefore need to limit our scope to some extent. We have chosen to focus upon gross or whole-body biomechanics and associated analysis methods. That is, we will generally consider the overall system or the system in the large, as opposed to the internal workings of the system. We will also focus upon dynamic as opposed to static phenomena.

As the title suggests, a major portion of this book is devoted to fundamental methods of analysis. While research in biomechanics is closely related to advances in technology, it is believed that individual technological advances are often short-lived and that more long-term benefits are obtained by mastering the fundamental methods. Therefore, we include the text reviews of vector and matrix methods, and a summary of the methods of basic mechanics (statics, strength of materials, kinematics, kinetics, inertia, and dynamics). Readers already familiar with these topics may choose to simply skim over them.

We will use these fundamental methods to develop more advanced and computer-oriented methods. These include configuration graphs, lower body arrays, differentiation algorithms, partial velocity and partial angular velocity vectors, generalized speeds, and Kane’s equations.

Finally, although our focus is gross motion simulation, we will still look at some topics in considerable depth to provide insight into those topics as well as to illustrate the developed analytical techniques. Throughout the text we will try to provide references for additional reading.

References

1. K.-N. An, R.A. Berger, and W.P. Cooney III (Eds.), Biomechanics of the Wrist Joint, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1991.

2. C.P. Anthony and N.J. Kolthoff, Textbook of Anatomy and Physiology, 9th edn.,Mosby, St. Louis, MO, 1975.

3. S.H. Backaitis (Ed.), Biomechanics of Impact Injury and Injury Tolerances of the Head-Neck Complex, Publication PT-43, Society of Automotive Engineers, Warrendale, PA, 1993.

4. S.H. Backaitis (Ed.), Biomechanics of Impact Injury and Injury Tolerances of the Thorax-Shoulder Complex, Publication PT-45, Society of Automotive Engineers, Warrendale, PA, 1994.

5. S.H. Backaitis (Ed.), Biomechanics of Impact Injuries and Human Tolerances of the Abdomen, Lumbar Spine, and Pelvis Complex, Publication PT-47, Society of Automotive Engineers, Warrendale, PA, 1995.

6. S.H. Backaitis (Ed.), Biomechanics of Impact Injury and Injury Tolerances of the Extremities, Publication PT-56, Society of Automotive Engineers, Warrendale, PA, 1996.

7. N. Berme and A. Cappozzo (Eds.), Biomechanics of Human Movement: Applications in Rehabilitation, Sports and Ergonomics, Bertec Corp., Washington DC, 1990.

8. J.L. Bluestein (Ed.), Mechanics and Sport, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, New York, NY, 1973.

9. R.S. Bridger, Introduction to Ergonomics, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, 1995.

10. P.R. Cavanagh (Ed.), Biomechanics of Distance Running, Human Kinetics Books, Champaign, IL, 1990.

11. D.B. Chaffin and G. B. J. Anderson, Occupational Biomechanics, John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1984.

12. E. Y. S. Chao, K.-N. An, W.P. Cooney III, and R.L. Linscheid, Biomechanics of the Hand—A Basic Research Study, World Scientific Publishing, Singapore, 1989.

13. S.C. Cowin, Mechanical Properties of Bone, Publication AMD-45, American Society of M...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Author
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 Review of Human Anatomy and Some Basic Terminology
• Chapter 3 Methods of Analysis I: Review of Vectors, Dyadics, Matrices, and Determinants
• Chapter 4 Methods of Analysis II: Forces and Force Systems
• Chapter 5 Methods of Analysis III: Mechanics of Materials
• Chapter 6 Methods of Analysis IV: Modeling of Biosystems
• Chapter 7 Tissue Biomechanics
• Chapter 8 Kinematical Preliminaries: Fundamental Equations
• Chapter 9 Kinematic Preliminaries: Inertia Force Considerations
• Chapter 10 Human Body Inertia Properties
• Chapter 11 Kinematics of Human Body Models
• Chapter 12 Kinetics of Human Body Models
• Chapter 13 Dynamics of Human Body Models
• Chapter 14 Numerical Methods
• Chapter 15 Simulations and Applications
• Appendix: Anthropometric Data Tables
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index