FE Analysis And Study Of Human Neck Dynamic Response In Rear-end Impact

In vehicle traffic accidents, neck injuries in rear-end car collisions account for considerable proportion, which frequently occur resulting severe or fatal consequence. With the development of powerful computational capabilities, Finite element models are helpful in the understanding of the underlying mechanisms of injury and dysfunction, leading to improved prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of clinical problems.The aim of the paper is to develop and validate a three-dimension finite element model of Chinese human neck for dynamic response during rear-end impact condition.A 50th percentile adult human was chosen as a model, the 3-D FE model of C1-T1 was constructed by means of SCT scanning technology to get data of DICOM format, software Materialise mimics, Pro-E to achieve three-dimension reconstruction, software TrueGrid to mesh. The model was composed of cervical vertebra, discs(nucleus, annulus, endplates),ligaments and muscles, which consisted eight-node solid elements, two-node cable elements and hughes-liu beam elements. The material properties were defined as isotropic, viscoelastic and cable. In LS-DYNA, the dynamic response of human neck under rear-end collision was investigated and compared with experimental results to validate the model.A parameter study was carried out to investigate the biomechanical response of the model under rear-end collision including the acceleration, velocity, rotational angle, von mises stress, effective plastic strain. The phenomena of the S-shaped and C-shaped was visible. Through the time, the stress and strain increased firstly, reaching peak value during the phase of S-shaped and C-shaped, then dropped. .The max stress and max strain of each cervical vertebra located on the centrum of T1. The max stress and max strain of each endplates, annulus and nucleus lay the foreside and rear end. The max stress and max strain of annulus and nucleus located between C7-T1. The max stress of endplates located between C4-C5, the max strain was between C5-C6.The anterior longitudinal ligament between C7-T1 was the site of the max stress and max strain. Fracture and avulsion of soft tissue may happen in rear-end collision.