Abstract
Recent field data showed that lumbar spine fractures occurred more frequently in late model vehicles than early ones in frontal crashes. However, the lumbar spine designs of the current crash test dummies are not accurate in human anatomy and have not been validated against any human/cadaver impact responses. In addition, the lumbar spines of finite element (FE) human models, including GHBMC and THUMS, have never been validated previously against cadaver tests. Therefore, this study developed a detailed FE lumbar spine model and validated it against cadaveric tests. To investigate the mechanism of lumbar spine injury in frontal crashes, effects of changing the coefficient of friction (COF), impact velocity, cushion thickness and stiffness, and cushion angle on the risk of lumbar spine injuries were analyzed based on a Taguchi array of design of experiments. The results showed that impact velocity is the most important factor in determining the risk of lumbar spine fracture (P = 0.009). After controlling the impact velocity, increases in the cushion thickness can effectively reduce the risk of lumbar spine fracture (P = 0.039).
Highlights
Safety designs in newer cars generally provided better protections to occupants than those in older cars
Several recent field data analyses have shown that lumbar spine fractures occurred more frequently in late model vehicles than the early ones in frontal crashes [1, 2]
Current crash test dummies were designed to focus on estimating injury risks to the head, neck, chest, and lower extremities, and their lumbar spine designs were not based on real human anatomy and were not validated against any human/cadaver impact responses
Summary
Safety designs in newer cars generally provided better protections to occupants than those in older cars. Several recent field data analyses have shown that lumbar spine fractures occurred more frequently in late model vehicles than the early ones in frontal crashes [1, 2] This increasing trend of lumbar spine fractures in frontal crashes is extremely concerning, because none of the current crash test programs, including FMVSS 208, US-NCAP, and IIHS, considered lumbar spine injury in their safety evaluation process. Arun et al [3] applied the stiffness values obtained from cadaver tests directly to the lumbar spine of the GHBMC simplified model It is a rigid bodybased lumbar spine model. It is lacking of detailed anatomical structures of the lumbar spine and cannot estimate strain and stress in the vertebrae
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