Biomechanical Analysis of Woodpecker Response During Pecking Using a Two-Dimensional Computational Model

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) due to the impact is a critical health concern. Impact mitigation strategy is a vital design paradigm to reduce the burden of TBI and CTE. In this regard, woodpecker biomimicry continues to attract attention. However, a direct comparison between a woodpecker and human biomechanical responses is lacking. Toward this end, we investigate the biomechanical response of a woodpecker during pecking using a two-dimensional head model. We also analyze the response of concurrent human head model to facilitate direct comparison with woodpecker response. The head models of woodpecker and human were built from medical images, the material properties were adopted from the literature. Both woodpecker and human head models were subjected to head kinematics obtained during pecking and resulting biomechanical response is studied. For the pecking cycle simulated in this work, peak rotational velocity and acceleration were ∼15 rad/s and 7,057 rad/s2. These peak values are commensurate with the kinematics threshold values reported in human TBI. Our results show that, for the same input acceleration, the strains and stresses in the woodpecker brain are approximately six times lo...Continue Reading