Expert Witness Blog

Millions of young athletes participating in organized sports programs suffer serious concussions, many of which go unidentified by volunteer coaches and parents…The CDC estimates that approximately 135,000 youngsters between the ages of 5-18 visit hospital emergency rooms for brain injuries every year. Accident reconstruction expert witness C. J. Abraham interviewed former middle school and high school football players who were paraplegics and quadriplegics to determine the causes of their horrific injuries. He became emotionally invested in their heart-breaking stories, which led to him patenting the flexible face-mask that was licensed and manufactured by Riddell in the early ’80s.

“The face-mask I invented for use with the football helmet was related to a need to reduce the risk of paralyzing injuries to young children,” Abraham says. “The steel face-mask the children were using weighed over a pound, did not absorb and dissipate forces and was much too heavy for young children. As a result, their heads and necks sagged and were prone to flexing extensively during a tackle, resulting in fractures of their spines. By cutting the weight in half and allowing the facemask to absorb and dissipate some of the impact forces, we were able to eliminate the paralyzing injuries that were caused by impact to the facemask during a tackle. Since the players started to use the facemask there have been no reported spinal injuries.”

Structural engineering experts witnesses opine on the science and art of designing and constructing buildings, bridges, frameworks and other similar structures to safely resist the forces to which they may be subjected. Structural engineering researchers at Rice University are leading a new $1.6 million research program funded by the National Science Foundation to help design a new generation of “smart” shock absorbers for buildings and bridges in earthquake-prone areas.

To imagine what a building undergoes in an earthquake, Nagarajaiah suggests imaging yourself standing in a moving bus or train. “Riders make their bodies and muscles tense when the bus moves, and they relax as soon as the sudden motion stops,” Nagarajaiah said. “The typical steel-framed building or bridge can’t do that, but we want to find technologies like adaptive stiffness and damping systems that can give structures that ability.”

Nagarajaiah said about 100 U.S. buildings and bridges — including the famed Golden Gate Bridge — have been built or are being retrofitted with large, passive dampers, which work just like the shock absorbers in a car, using pistons and hydraulic fluid to absorb the impact of sudden shocks. But passive dampers do not have the ability to adjust their properties-such as stiffness and damping-in real time. By design, they perform the same way in every earthquake, but Nagarajaiah said quake researchers have discovered in recent years that all quakes are not created equal.

Real Estate experts at Simplythebestloans.com write on lenders rejecting appraisals:

Appraisals: It’s about the Property, Not your Loan!

One of the newest issues with many loans today is lenders reviewing and rejecting appraisals. The appraisal is a ”defensible” and carefully documented opinion of value. Most commonly derived using recent sales of comparable properties by a licensed, professional appraiser. Since the real estate market has been extremely heated in my area, property values have soared at a rapid rate. Lender’s are beginning to question these values and whether or not they’re realistic.

In Moving On Their Own Ahmed K. Noor, mechanical engineering expert and Director of the Center for Advanced Engineering Environments, writes on mobile robots:

The word “robot” dates back to the early 1920s. It was introduced in a play called R.U.R. by a Czech writer, Karel Čapek. The idea of an automaton existed in antiquity, the subject of myths and fiction, but the first humanoid robot, Elektro, was exhibited by Westinghouse Electric Corp. at the 1939 World’s Fair. Ten years later came the first biologically inspired autonomous robots, Elmer and Elsie. They looked like turtles and were constructed at Bristol University in England in 1948 and 1949. Artificial intelligence entered a fully mobile robot when Shakey was demonstrated by the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) in 1969.

Since then, robotic technologies have enabled computer-driven machines to interact intimately with the physical world, and there has been an expectation that robots would some day deliver humans from the drudgery of hard work… That has partly come to pass. Contemporary robots are used for jobs that are boring, dirty, or dangerous; or for tasks that require more speed, precision, or endurance than a human can provide. Robots today are part of our lives. They sweep the floor at home, and perform almost all welding, painting, and assembly tasks in the automotive industry. They have become a basic element of production in industries ranging from electronics to wood products.

Structural engineering experts witnesses opine on the science and art of designing and constructing buildings, bridges, frameworks and other similar structures to safely resist the forces to which they may be subjected. Structural engineering researchers at Rice University are leading a new $1.6 million research program funded by the National Science Foundation to help design a new generation of “smart” shock absorbers for buildings and bridges in earthquake-prone areas.

“What we are trying to do is to come up with new and intelligent ways to develop smart buildings and bridges that sense what’s happening when a quake hits and react in real-time,” said principal investigator Satish Nagarajaiah, professor in civil and environmental engineering and professor in mechanical engineering and materials science…In the newly funded project, his lab is partnering with researchers at the University at Buffalo; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; the University of California, Los Angeles; and California State University, Fresno.

For more, see ‘Smart’ shock absorbers for quake-prone structures.

In Soccer – Head Injuries and Protection, C.J. Abraham Ph.D., P.E., FRSC, DEE, JD, accident reconstruction expert witness and Technical Director – ForceField, LLC, writes on soccer injuries:

How many times has a parent or coach of a child playing a contact sport either seen the child/adult get “bonged” or “dinged”? How many times does that experience go unreported?

For decades we have all enjoyed watching athletic teams of all ages, face off and score those points. As participants, they have taken pride in stretching their athletic performances. Whether we block the offense, make a winning pass, or simply run up and down the field, sports will always be a source of pleasure, challenge and fitness.

In Understanding How Materials Fail: Stress v. Fatigue, forensic engineering expert witness Clyde C. Richard, Ph.D., P.E., writes on material failure:

This overload of the material can contribute to an immediate accident or accelerate the breakdown of the materials. This is why most tow hitches are supplied with warnings, ratings and consumer education material. The second failure mechanism is fatigue. Fatigue is a phenomenon leading to fracture under repeated or fluctuating stresses having a maximum value less than the ultimate strength of the material. Fatigue fractures are progressive, beginning as minute cracks that grow with the application of cyclic stress.

During the visual inspection, the expert views the material under increasing magnifications to look for stress or fatigued related evidence such as plastic deformation, tearing, brittleness and necking. Necking is found in ductile metals or flexible metals where an extreme stress has been applied. Engineering experts can also perform a series of tests using an Emission Spectroscope, a Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) spectrometer and/or Tensile Testing Machines to determine a material’s composition and strength.

In Understanding How Materials Fail: Stress v. Fatigue, forensic engineering expert witness Clyde C. Richard, Ph.D., P.E., writes on material failure:

Today, in most product liability cases in the court system or with insurance companies, the alleged cause of the accident is either misuse or material failure. Accidents including people falling off ladders, chairs or bicycles and the failure of machinery and motorized vehicles can be caused by or contributed by material failure. Materials such as metals, plastics, ceramics and glass can fail immediately or breakdown over time through two different mechanisms: stress and fatigue.

Stress, or what some experts call a fracture, is when someone or something applies a load that exceeds the ultimate strength of a material. An example would be a tow hitch on a car that is rated for 3,000 lbs. and the user pulls a load of 9,000 lbs.

In Treadmill Accidents: Allegations for Product Defects, equipment and machinery expert witness Clyde C. Richard, Ph.D., P.E., writes that treadmills continue to be one of the major causes of liability claims in the health club industry today and that accidents involving treadmills in homes are causing an increasing number of injuries as well. His company was retained to investigate a treadmill accident where the homeowner purchased a commercial treadmill and two years later set it up in a small confined space.

The plaintiff was exercising when they fainted, fell off the treadmill, was pushed to the rear and pinned against the wall, sustaining major injures as a result. The allegation in the complaint was that the manufacturer designed a defective product because it should have included a safety device other than the string pull or dead man switch that would protect a person who fell while exercising…

The engineer…obtained the installation guide and owner’s manual and determined that both had specific instructions to allow five to ten feet behind the treadmill for clearance in the event of a fall. A site inspection showed that the treadmill was installed with only 19 inches of clearance. A history of fainting revealed during the plaintiff’s deposition only heightened the importance of the manufacturer’s warnings. The insight and research of the engineer allowed the treadmill manufacturer to be dismissed from the case. Treadmills, like any other moving piece of equipment can be dangerous if the warning and safety precautions are not followed.