Abstract
ViVA Open Human Body Model (HBM) is an open-source human body model that was developed to fill the gap of currently available models that lacked the average female size. In this study, the head–neck model of ViVA OpenHBM was further developed by adding active muscle controllers for the cervical muscles to represent the human neck muscle reflex system as studies have shown that cervical muscles influence head–neck kinematics during impacts. The muscle controller was calibrated by conducting optimization-based parameter identification of published-volunteer data. The effects of different calibration objectives to head–neck kinematics were analyzed and compared. In general, a model with active neck muscles improved the head–neck kinematics agreement with volunteer responses. The current study highlights the importance of including active muscle response to mimic the volunteer’s kinematics. A simple PD controller has found to be able to represent the behavior of the neck muscle reflex system. The optimum gains that defined the muscle controllers in the present study were able to be identified using optimizations. The present study provides a basis for describing an active muscle controller that can be used in future studies to investigate whiplash injuries in rear impacts
Highlights
Finite element (FE) models of the human neck have been used to study cervical kinematics and injury response related to vehicle collisions since the early 1990s.2 These models are valuable tools for understanding cervical spine kinematics as well as injuries that result from vehicle collisions
The head–neck model of ViVA OpenHBM was further developed by adding active muscle controllers for the cervical muscles to represent the human neck muscle reflex system as studies have shown that cervical muscles influence head–neck kinematics during impacts
The present study provides a basis for describing an active muscle controller that can be used in future studies to investigate whiplash injuries in rear impacts
Summary
Finite element (FE) models of the human neck have been used to study cervical kinematics and injury response related to vehicle collisions since the early 1990s.2 These models are valuable tools for understanding cervical spine kinematics as well as injuries that result from vehicle collisions. Finite element (FE) models of the human neck have been used to study cervical kinematics and injury response related to vehicle collisions since the early 1990s.2. These models are valuable tools for understanding cervical spine kinematics as well as injuries that result from vehicle collisions. To use a head–neck FE model for assessing the risk of soft tissue neck injuries, so called whiplash injuries, the correct prediction of cervical spine kinematics is important. Several phases of neck kinematics are observed: retraction, extension and flexion.[10,11,39] Many hypothesis regarding the causation of whiplash injuries are related to the retraction motion of the neck (S-shape cervical spine).[6,19,20,39,43] if a head–neck FE model is to be used for predicting whiplash injuries, an important aspect is that the model generates a human-like retraction motion
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