Title: Conceptual development of a personalised whiplash protection system

Authors: Nicholas A. White, Jingwen Hu, King H. Yang

Addresses: Wayne State University, 818 W. Hancock Street, Detroit, MI 48201, USA. ' Wayne State University, 818 W. Hancock Street, Detroit, MI 48201, USA. ' Director of the Biomedical Engineering Center, Wayne State University, 818 W. Hancock Street, Detroit, MI 48201, USA

Abstract: Modern automobiles are safer than their predecessors owing to the installation of new, more effective vehicular restraint systems. Unfortunately, crash-induced fatality and injury rates remain high because certain data related to human injury responses and tolerances are not available to aid in the design of more effective occupant protection. A one-size-fits-all approach is not always the best way to protect occupants of different ages, sizes and weights. We believe that personalised protection systems will become the future trend in designing restraint systems. In this study, combined post mortem human subject testing, medical imaging segmentation and explicit finite element analyses were used to exemplify the use of patient-specific data in injury analysis. Rear-end impact simulations were run with the FE models to depict the head and neck kinematics during the so-called |whiplash| event. Simulations of an active head restraint system were conducted to investigate the risk of neck injury.

Keywords: cervical spine; FEA; FEM; finite element method; high-speed X-rays; occupant protection; PPS; personalised protection systems; rear-end impact; simulation; restraint systems design; medical imaging segmentation; whiplash protection; vehicle safety; post mortem testing; injury analysis; head kinematics; neck kinematics; neck injury; injury risk; vehicle crash.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVS.2008.022215

International Journal of Vehicle Safety, 2008 Vol.3 No.2, pp.149- 164

Published online: 23 Dec 2008 *

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