The IBRC has conducted a large body of work focused on the dynamic response and injury of the human thorax. Rib fractures in particular are a focus of our work as they occur from blunt force trauma and in a variety of settings, commonly including motor vehicle crashes. These injuries often result in increased morbidity and mortality rates across all portions of the population. Therefore, the broad goals of our thoracic research are to:
1) Identify biological sources and mechanisms for rib failure- how and why do these vary between individuals across the population?
2) Characterize thoracic response and quantify injury thresholds, also accounting for variation within the human population.
The main application of this research is translation of our findings to make improvements to anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs) and computational occupant models, and subsequently either prevent or reduce the incidence of thoracic injuries.
