Musings of a Compulsive Thinker

Fake "legs"

A while back, I read a book that discussed (among other things) the myriad uses of cadavers in scientific research. In the case of such areas as ballistics & munitions testing (including trying out protective footwear for minefield sweepers), it was no surprise to learn that these folks don't often (hardly ever) get permission to use actual cadavers or cadaver parts (i.e. legs) in their tests. On one hand, I completely understand that these tests need to be run; on the other hand, I completely sympathize with those who withhold the permission. Who wants grandma's legs to get blown to shreds?

What they usually end up doing is casting models of bodies or body parts in ballistics gel, which apparently is a fantastic substitute for biological soft tissues. This book reported that several researchers have expressed their desire to have a more complete model of, for example, the human leg; they can see from their ballistic gel models what can happen to soft tissue, but they want a model with synthetic bone inside.

Some work has been done toward developing such a model of the human leg. So far, the "best" model produced consisted of a fiberglass "bone" at the core of the ballistic gel "leg." When tested, the fiberglass proved to be a nominally adequate bone-substitute; however, the testers complained that this "bone" just didn't behave quite right.

If I had but time and money to spare, this might be a fun project to develop. I have given the idea some preliminary thought. The compact portion of the bone could probably be fairly well-modeled with a fiberglass composite. Modeling the trabecular bone tissue, however, would present more of a challenge. Possible materials for investigation might include metallic glass foams, high-strength aerogel composites, or other cross-linked fiber composites.


The book (highly recommended, unless you get queasy): Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, by Mary Roach (2004).

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Labels: literature, science

posted by the alygator @ 3:01 PM