Finite element human body models with active reflexive muscles suitable for sex based whiplash injury prediction

Previous research has not produced a satisfactory resource to study reflexive muscle activity for investigating potentially injurious whiplash motions. Various experimental and computational studies are available, but none provided a comprehensive biomechanical representation of human response during rear impacts. Three objectives were addressed in the current study to develop female and male finite element human body models with active reflexive neck muscles: 1) eliminate the buckling in the lower cervical spine of the model observed in earlier active muscle controller implementations, 2) evaluate and quantify the influence of the individual features of muscle activity, and 3) evaluate and select the best model configuration that can be used for whiplash injury predictions. The current study used an open-source finite element model of the human body for injury assessment representing an average 50th percentile female anthropometry, together with the derivative 50th percentile male morphed model. Based on the head-neck kinematics and CORelation and Analyis (CORA) tool for evaluation, models with active muscle controller and parallel damping elements showed improved head-neck kinematics agreement with the volunteers over the passive models. It was concluded that this model configuration would be the most suitable for gender-based whiplash injury prediction when different impact severities are to be studied.