FE Modeling Of Head-Neck Biomechanical Responses Of Occupant In Vehicle Crashes

In vehicle traffic accidents the head and neck are the most vulnerable parts of human body that are frequently injured with severe or fatal consequence. Their high incidence rate and often long-term consequences lead to significant social costs. It is a challenge to safety community for research into the head-neck injury mechanisms and improve the vehicle design for the reduction of the injuries and economical loss in accidents.The aim of this paper is to develop and validate a head FE model which is combined with previously developed neck model. The neck model is improved within this model. The combined head-neck model can be used for study human's neck response and injury mechanism in vehicle accidents.The head-neck has complicated anatomy structures and the soft tissues have different properties. These factors determine that complex model is needed. This study utilized the nonlinear dynamic explicit FEM code for development of a head-neck FE model. The head-neck model represents a 50th percentile male adult. The head model consists of skull and brain. The neck model consists of cervical vertebra, disk, ligaments, and muscles. Whole head-neck was modeled with 17758 nodes and 21803 elements, including solid, shell, beam, and spring elements. The material properties were defined according to the available biomechanical data. The boundary and loading conditions were applied according to the condition of the volunteers' tests. The head-neck model was validated with the front and rear end impacts and the results are acceptable.A parameter study was carried out to investigate the influence of the soft tissues properties to the neck biomechanical response. The results show that the properties of disks have great effect on the biomechanical response of the neck. The ligaments have the function to restrict the hyper-movement of the neck. The muscles have a contribution to the stability of neck motion.This model has a high biofidelity and can be used to study the neck biomechanical response and to investigate the injury parameters. The developed head-neck FE model will contribute to the research on neck injury mechanism and development of injury protective device. Moreover, the head FE model can be improved and used for the study of head injury.