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The influence of striking object characteristics on the impact energy

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Abstract

A common form of violence investigated in legal medicine is blunt trauma caused by striking with different objects. The injuries and medical consequences have been widely examined, whereas the forces and especially the energies acting on impact have rarely been analyzed. This study focuses on how the impact energy of different striking objects depends on their characteristics. A total of 1170 measurements of horizontal strikes against a static and relatively heavy pendulum have been acquired with 13 volunteers. The main focus was laid on how the weight, the length, and the center of mass of the different striking objects influenced the striking energy. The results show average impact energies in the range of 67.3 up to 311.5 J for men with an optimum weight of about 1.3 kg with its center of mass in the far end quarter for a 1-m-long striking object. The average values for women range from 30 to 202.6 J, with an optimum weight between 1.65 and 2.2 kg and similar settings for the center of mass as the men. Also, the impact energies are getting higher with shorter object lengths and reach a maximum at a length of about 0.3 to 0.4 m. The male volunteers’ impact energy was on average by 84.2 % higher than the values of the female volunteers, where the impact masses were very similar and the impact velocities played the key role.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for forensic medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Florian D. Sprenger, Lea Siegenthaler, Beat P. Kneubuehl & Christian Jackowski

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  1. Florian D. Sprenger
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  2. Lea Siegenthaler
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  3. Beat P. Kneubuehl
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  4. Christian Jackowski
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Correspondence to Lea Siegenthaler.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Sprenger, F.D., Siegenthaler, L., Kneubuehl, B.P. et al. The influence of striking object characteristics on the impact energy. Int J Legal Med 130, 835–844 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-015-1268-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-015-1268-1

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