With the rise in vehicle ownership, the need to reduce the risk of injury among vehicle occupants that arises from vehicle collisions is important to occupants, insurers, manufacturers and policy makers alike. The human head and neck are of special interest, due to their vulnerable nature and the severity of potential injury in these collisions. This work is divided into two parts: In Part I, we focus our attention to modeling rear collision that could lead to whiplash. Specifically, two multibody dynamics (MBD) models of the cervical spine of the 50th percentile male are developed using realistic geometries, accelerations and biofidelic variable intervertebral rotational stiffness. Furthermore, nonlinear finite element (FE) simulations of two generic compact sedan vehicles in rear collision scenario were performed. Using the acceleration profiles measured at the driver’s seat of the colliding vehicles, FE simulation of a seated and restrained occupant in rear collision was performed to determine the occupant response. The resultant accelerations, measured at the T1 vertebra of the occupant model, were used as an input to the MBD models to obtain their kinematic response. Validation of the MBD models shows great agreement with experimentally published data. Comparison between the MBD and FE simulations for a 32 km/h vehicle-to-vehicle impact shows similar trends in head trajectory. However, the MBD models reported less peak head displacements compared to the FE model. This is attributed to the failure of the anterior longitudinal ligament at the mid cervical spine leading to increased intervertebral rotation in the FE model.

随着车辆拥有量的增加，减少由车辆碰撞引起的车辆乘员受伤风险的需求对于乘员，保险公司，制造商和政策制定者都是重要的。由于人类的头和颈部易受伤害的性质以及这些碰撞中潜在伤害的严重性，因此它们特别受到关注。这项工作分为两个部分：在第一部分中，我们将注意力集中在建模可能导致鞭打的后部碰撞上。具体而言，使用现实的几何形状，加速度和生物弹性可变椎间旋转刚度开发了第50个百分位男性的颈椎的两个多体动力学（MBD）模型。此外，还进行了两种通用紧凑型轿车在后方碰撞情况下的非线性有限元（FE）仿真。使用在碰撞车辆的驾驶员座椅处测得的加速度曲线，对就座并受约束的乘员在后部碰撞中进行有限元模拟，以确定乘员的反应。在乘员模型的T1椎骨上测得的合成加速度用作MBD模型的输入以获得其运动学响应。MBD模型的验证与实验发布的数据非常吻合。MBD和FE模拟在32 km / h的车辆对车辆碰撞中的比较显示出头部轨迹的相似趋势。但是，与FE模型相比，MBD模型报告的峰顶位移较小。这归因于FE模型中颈椎中部前纵韧带的衰竭导致椎间旋转增加。