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ABSTRACT: Whiplash injuries continue to have significant societal cost; however, the mechanism and location of whiplash injury is still under investigation. Recently, the upper cervical spine ligaments, particularly the alar ligament, have been identified as a potential whiplash injury location. In this study, a detailed and validated explicit finite element model of a 50th percentile male cervical spine in a seated posture was used to investigate upper cervical spine response and the potential for whiplash injury resulting from vehicle crash scenarios. This model was previously validated at the segment and whole spine levels for both kinematics and soft tissue strains in frontal and rear impact scenarios. The model predicted increasing upper cervical spine ligament strain with increasing impact severity. Considering all upper cervical spine ligaments, the distractions in the apical and alar ligaments were the largest relative to their failure strains, in agreement with the clinical findings. The model predicted the potential for injury to the apical ligament for 15.2 g frontal or 11.7 g rear impacts, and to the alar ligament for a 20.7 g frontal or 14.4 g rear impact based on the ligament distractions. Future studies should consider the effect of initial occupant position on ligament distraction.
Journal of biomechanics 01/2012; 45(6):1098-102. · 2.66 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Predicting neck response and injury resulting from motor vehicle accidents is essential to improving occupant protection. A detailed human cervical spine finite element model has been developed, with material properties and geometry determined a priori of any validation, for the evaluation of global kinematics and tissue-level response. Model validation was based on flexion/extension response at the segment level, tension response of the whole ligamentous cervical spine, head kinematic response from volunteer frontal impacts, and soft tissue response from cadaveric whole cervical spine frontal impacts. The validation responses were rated as 0.79, assessed using advanced cross-correlation analysis, indicating the model exhibits good biofidelity. The model was then used to evaluate soft tissue response in frontal impact scenarios ranging from 8G to 22G in severity. Disc strains were highest in the C4-C5-C6 segments, and ligament strains were greatest in the ISL and LF ligaments. Both ligament and disc fiber strain levels exceeded the failure tolerances in the 22G case, in agreement with existing data. This study demonstrated that a cervical spine model can be developed at the tissue level and provide accurate biofidelic kinematic and local tissue response, leading to injury prediction in automotive crash scenarios.
Medical Engineering & Physics 06/2011; 33(9):1147-59. · 1.62 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Predicting neck kinematics and tissue level response is essential to evaluate the potential for occupant injury in rear impact. A detailed 50th percentile male finite element model, previously validated for frontal impact, was validated for rear impact scenarios with material properties based on actual tissue properties from the literature. The model was validated for kinematic response using 4 g volunteer and 7 g cadaver rear impacts, and at the tissue level with 8 g isolated full spine rear impact data. The model was then used to predict capsular ligament (CL) strain for increasing rear impact severity, since CL strain has been implicated as a source of prolonged pain resulting from whiplash injury. The model predicted the onset of CL injury for a 14 g rear impact, in agreement with motor vehicle crash epidemiology. More extensive and severe injuries were predicted with increasing impact severity. The importance of muscle activation was demonstrated for a 7 g rear impact where the CL strain was reduced from 28 to 13% with active muscles. These aspects have not previously been demonstrated experimentally, since injurious load levels cannot be applied to live human subjects. This study bridges the gap between low intensity volunteer impacts and high intensity cadaver impacts, and predicts tissue level response to assess the potential for occupant injury.
Annals of biomedical engineering 05/2011; 39(8):2152-62. · 2.41 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Detailed cervical spine models are necessary to better understand cervical spine response to loading, improve our understanding of injury mechanisms, and specifically for predicting occupant response and injury in auto crash scenarios. The focus of this study was to develop a C4-C5 finite element model with accurate representations of each tissue within the segment. This model incorporates more than double the number of elements of existing models, required for accurate prediction of response. The most advanced material data available were then incorporated using appropriate nonlinear constitutive models to provide accurate predictions of response at physiological levels of loading. This tissue-scale segment model was validated against a wide variety of experimental data including different modes of loading (axial rotation, flexion, extension, lateral bending, and translation), and different load levels. In general, the predicted response of the model was within the single standard deviation response corridors for both low and high load levels. Importantly, this model demonstrates that appropriate refinement of the finite element mesh, representation at the tissue level, and sufficiently detailed material properties and constitutive models provide excellent response predictions without calibration of the model to experimental data. Load sharing between the disc, ligaments, and facet joints was investigated for various modes of loading, and the dominant load-bearing structure was found to correlate with typical anatomical injury sites for these modes of loading. The C4-C5 model forms the basis for the development of a full cervical spine model. Future studies will focus on tissue-level injury prediction and dynamic response.
Journal of biomechanics 03/2009; 42(4):480-90. · 2.66 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The polymeric split Hopkinson pressure bar (PSHPB) apparatus is introduced as a means for measuring the high strain rate (1,000-2,500 s(-1)) compressive properties of soft tissues. Issues related to specimen design are discussed, and protocols are presented for specimen preparation. Proposed specimen geometries were validated using high-speed photography. Stress-strain data were obtained for high strain rate compression of bovine muscle tissue to strains as high as 80%. The stress-strain curves were found to be strain rate-sensitive and concave upward, as is typical of soft tissues. Rigor had a significant impact on the material properties between 5 and 24 h post mortem, while at longer times, properties returned essentially to their pre-rigor values. This study presents some of the first published high rate properties of muscle tissue, data that are urgently for advanced modeling of the human body and for evaluation of safety systems for the human body.
Journal of Biomechanics 02/2006; 39(10):1852-8. · 2.43 Impact Factor
