TY - JOUR PY - 2018// TI - The influence of neck muscle activation on head and neck injuries of occupants in frontal impacts JO - Applied bionics and biomechanics A1 - Li, Fan A1 - Lu, Ronggui A1 - Hu, Wei A1 - Li, Honggeng A1 - Hu, Shiping A1 - Hu, Jiangzhong A1 - Wang, Haibin A1 - Xie, He SP - e7279302 EP - e7279302 VL - 2018 IS - N2 - The aim of the present paper was to study the influence of neck muscle activation on head and neck injuries of vehicle occupants in frontal impacts. A mixed dummy-human finite element model was developed to simulate a frontal impact. The head-neck part of a Hybrid III dummy model was replaced by a well-validated head-neck FE model with passive and active muscle characteristics. The mixed dummy-human FE model was validated by 15 G frontal volunteer tests conducted in the Naval Biodynamics Laboratory. The effects of neck muscle activation on the head dynamic responses and neck injuries of occupants in three frontal impact intensities, low speed (10 km/h), medium speed (30 km/h), and high speed (50 km/h), were studied. The results showed that the mixed dummy-human FE model has good biofidelity. The activation of neck muscles can not only lower the head resultant acceleration under different impact intensities and the head angular acceleration in medium- and high-speed impacts, thereby reducing the risks of head injury, but also protect the neck from injury in low-speed impacts.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 1176-2322 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2018/7279302 ID - ref1 ER -