Evaluation of the GHBMC Lumbar Spine in Sub-injurious and Injurious Loading

Paper in proceeding, 2022

Accurate prediction of lumbar spine response and how it relates to kinematics, kinetics, and injury is critical since lumbar spine loading is predicted to be amplified in reclined postures. The objective was to evaluate the Global Human Body Models Consortium (GHBMC) lumbar spine (v5.1.1) model relative to postmortem human subjects (PMHS) in two different loading modes using data from recent experiments. The model's whole ligamentous lumbar spine was first evaluated in sub-injurious quasi-static loading in multiple directions with three different levels of axial compression. Compared to PMHS, the GHBMC responses varied widely across loading direction and axial compression level, exhibiting higher stiffness in some conditions and lower stiffness in other conditions. Then, three-vertebra sections of the model's ligamentous lumbar spine were subjected to high-rate compression-flexion loading to failure. Compared to PMHS, GHBMC responses and stiffness coefficients did not display the same bilinear response behavior, but instead displayed linear behavior. Additionally, the GHBMC and PMHS did not respond similarly when increased levels of axial compression were applied. The outcomes from this study shed light on the usefulness of the model.