Analysis of control strategies for VIVA OpenHBM with active refexive neck muscles
Journal article, 2022

Modeling muscle activity in the neck muscles of a finite element (FE) human body model can be based on two biological reflex systems. One approach is to approximate the Vestibulocollic reflex (VCR) function, which maintains the head orientation relative to a fixed reference in space. The second system tries to maintain the head posture relative to the torso, similar to the Cervicocolic reflex (CCR). Strategies to combine these two neck muscle controller approaches in a single head-neck FE model were tested, optimized, and compared to rear-impact volunteer data. The first approach, Combined-Control, assumed that both controllers simultaneously controlled all neck muscle activations. In the second approach, Distributed-Control, one controller was used to regulate activation of the superficial muscles while a different controller acted on deep neck muscles. The results showed that any muscle controller that combined the two approaches was less effective than only using one of VCR- or CCR-based systems on its own. A passive model had the best objective rating for cervical spine kinematics, but the addition of a single active controller provided the best response for both head and cervical spine kinematics. The present study demonstrates the difficulty in completely capturing representative head and cervical spine responses to rear-impact
loading and identified a controller capturing the VCR reflex as the best candidate to investigate whiplash injury mechanisms through FE modeling.

Finite element · Human body model · Muscle controller · Muscle spindle · Vestibular system · Whiplash injury

Author

I Putu Alit Putra

Chalmers, Mechanics and Maritime Sciences (M2), Vehicle Safety

Robert Thomson

Chalmers, Mechanics and Maritime Sciences (M2), Vehicle Safety

Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology

1617-7959 (ISSN) 16177940 (eISSN)

Open Access Virtual Testing Protocols for Enhanced Road User Safety (VIRTUAL)

European Commission (EC) (EC/H2020/768960), 2018-06-01 -- 2022-05-31.

Subject Categories

Mechanical Engineering

Applied Mechanics

Medical Engineering

Areas of Advance

Transport

Infrastructure

C3SE (Chalmers Centre for Computational Science and Engineering)

DOI

10.1007/s10237-022-01616-y

More information

Latest update

8/15/2022