Trauma Mechanics Research Initiative
The Trauma Mechanics Research Initiative (TMRI) at UNL is a collaborative research venture supported by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory's Army Research Office (ARO) involving engineering faculty from UNL and research teams from Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories. The current focus of the TMRI is advancing the experimental and theoretical understanding of the mechanics of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) resulting from Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blasts.
Research:
The current objectives of the TMRI are to:
- Develop a state-of-the-art blast testing facility and anatomically-realistic instrumented surrogate to provide high-fidelity validation for multiscale modeling of blast loading to the head with and without personal protective equipment (PPE).
- Develop a multiscale constitutive model of the coupled helmet, skull and brain system to examine the effect of blast loading on the deformation, damage, and function of skull and brain tissues.
- Characterize the dynamic behavior and biochemical response of tissues and cells through high-precision controlled experiments.
People:
The TMRI includes 10 research faculty at UNL and is led by Dr. Namas Chandra, associate dean for Research, UNL College of Engineering.
Partners:
The TMRI has partnered with premier science and engineering facilities to leverage their capabilities to accelerate progress toward achieving the research objectives.
Current external research partners include:
ContactDownloads:
As a guest of UNL's Trauma Mechanics program, Jeffrey J. Fredberg, Ph.D.--professor of bioengineering and physiology with Harvard's School of Public Health--spoke to the UNL College of Engineering on February 24 about cell stretch and the intersection of cell biology and soft matter physics.
