And they are both caused by different things. We have two distinct ways that the sword will ‘mess you up’. Failure ModeĮxcessive acceleration/deceleration of the brain. Let’s take a look at two common ‘failure modes’ of the head in a blunt sword impact.
#Physics how mu h force for a.concussion cracked
Cracked Skulls and Brain Injuries – A Tale of Better Masks Not a surprising conclusion, given that protective gear is already designed this way. Which brings us to the best way to design gear: a hard outer shell to disperse the pressure, and a soft inner layer to reduce the peak force. (If you ignored my earlier advice and did not read the article on Impulse/Peak Force, I’m not to blame if you don’t properly understand this.)
![physics how mu h force for a.concussion physics how mu h force for a.concussion](https://0901.static.prezi.com/preview/v2/bactmmxvnlfli6pygg4a7q6udd6jc3sachvcdoaizecfr3dnitcq_3_0.png)
While we can’t do anything about the total impulse transferred, we can add some padding to reduce the peak force you experience. This is because even though you dispersed the force over a wider area, there is still the exact same amount of force coming through to you. We (should) know that just having rigid gear strapped directly onto you doesn’t make impacts all that comfortable. *This is a terrible way to quantify a number, but also the most colloquial. Suffice to say, you probably aren’t going this far to help design your DIY mask cover. If you’ve ever seen a ‘sciencey’ picture with a bunch of blue and red shading, it was probably the computation of a pressure distribution. Approaches range from simplified models with approximate calculations, to Finite Element Analysis computer software. For example, curved surfaces will gain ‘strength’ by the way their shape can disperse the force through the object internally.Īs for exactly how the pressure is distributed through the object, it’s a complicated task that keeps many engineers gainfully employed. What the shape of the material dispersing the force is.How stiff/rigid the material dispersing the force is.How thick the material dispersing the force is.
![physics how mu h force for a.concussion physics how mu h force for a.concussion](https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/441891/frym-07-00055-HTML/image_m/figure-4.jpg)
This would bring the applied pressure down from 4,800 psi down to 143 psi, reducing the pressure by 33 times!*īut how do we know exactly how much area the force is dispersed over? It’s somewhat complicated to calculate, and it involves: Going back to our pressure calculations, imagine that the 3mm feder edge is now a whole 4 inches wide. Look at it this way: Go piece of metal! Go! But rather than keeping it all in one point, it spreads the load out. When the sword hits the metal, it will pass all the force through to your arm. Why exactly would this help? If you didn’t guess that the answer is ‘Force Dispersion’, you are probably skimming a little too fast. The answer is clearly to strap a piece of metal to the wrist. Perhaps you aren’t too keen on any of the above scenarios. This makes the edge/flat pressure ratio even higher. *The flat is also much less stiff than the edge, so the total force would also be smaller. And using a sharp sword is more dangerous than using a blunt sword! It’s a good thing you have me here to run the math, or you would have never known. Hitting edge on with a feder generates way more pressure than with the flat*. Imagine that the sword impact hits with 1000 N of force - an arbitrary magic number. One of the most important injury criteria is how much pressure a bone is subjected to. The radius is very near the surface, so we can almost consider impact with a blunt sword as occurring directly on the bone (ignoring any thin layers or skin/muscle/fat in-between). Given that we all know about the difference between force and pressure, we can look at one of the ways our equipment keeps us safe, which is by dispersing the impact forces.įirst, let’s think of a bone that runs very near the surface, like the radius. This is an article about modern sparring safety, so all impacts describe blunt weapons. If you don’t, someone might have already written some equally awesome articles on the subject:
![physics how mu h force for a.concussion physics how mu h force for a.concussion](https://www.coursehero.com/thumb/6e/5a/6e5a2c92925bfc0c45776c8fe8d755f3c9cb46b2_180.jpg)
This article assumes you already have an understanding about Force vs Pressure, and Impulse/Peak Force. But it’s also a really important factor in not getting injured with a blunt sword! We know that pressure is what makes a sharp sword cut or stab.