A Study of Cervical Spine Kinematics and Joint Capsule Strain in Rear Impacts using a Human FE Model

Development and validation of a coupled head-neck FEM – application to whiplash injury criteria investigation

“…Different studies illustrated the motion of the vertebrae in a rear impact configuration [14,34,37,38]. The experimental tests from Ono et al [34] are often used for neck FEM validation as has been achieved by Ejima et al [15], Kitagawa et al [22] and the THUMS model. Therefore, it has been decided to reproduce an experimental test at 8 km/h in relaxed conditions.…”

“…These models were able to predict the head-neck kinematics but are not yet able to predict injury risk during a rear impact. The first study using a Neck FE Model (FEM) in order to offer a better protection was proposed by Kitagawa et al [22] who conducted an optimisation of a car seat based on the relative displacement of the facet joint. Recently, Ono et al [35] used the FE model developed by Ejima et al [15] and Sugimoto and Yamazaki [40] and proposed a new injury criteria based on the strain rate of the facet joint.…”

“…The first concerns the experimental approach with the characterisation of the relative cervical vertebrae motion during a rear impact [28,34,48] and second the numerical tools based on finite-element (FE) modelling. Recent FE models are not just designed to predict head kinematics but are able to give insight into injury criteria in order to optimise different protection systems against intra-cervical parameters [22,35]. Before these recent advances, the injuries criteria were based on relative head and first thoracic vertebrae kinematics.…”

“…Material property data for neck modelling.Downloaded by [University Library Utrecht] at 07:18 24 October 2012 …”

“…Kinematic response of the finite element model to a frontal impact according to NBDL[17,16]. by [University Library Utrecht] at 07:18 24 October 2012 …”