Junior mechanical engineering students Abbas Nahle Dabdoub, Abdalrhman Shahbary, and Karim Braidi developed an educational and research prototype for early postmortem interval (PMI) quantification. This index provides crucial information in forensic investigations through time reconstruction of a suspected crime. Assistant professor of mechanical engineering, Dr. Iyad Fayssal, supervised their project.
The device integrates principles of thermometry where the effect of various environmental and human-related factors on the body cooling rate are recorded and analyzed. The prototype is adequate for researching ex-vivo experiments on synthetic cadaveric material to generate “Comprehensive Data Maps” that closely mimic human conditions. The maps can then be utilized as a standard dataset to reconstruct PMI from recorded body temperature and other physical factors, like weather conditions pre and post discovery of the body, clothing type, body posture, etc.
