Autonomous vehicles will allow a variety of seating orientations that may change the risk of neck injury during an accident. Having a rotated head at the time of a rear-end collision in a conventional vehicle is associated with a higher risk of acute and chronic whiplash. The change in posture affects both the movement of the head and the response of the muscles. We are studying the reflexes of the muscles of the neck so that we can validate the responses of digital human body models that are used in crash simulations. The neck movements and muscle activity of 21 participants (11 female) were recorded at the Stuttgart FKFS mechanical driving simulator. During the maneuver we recorded the acceleration of the seat and electromyographic (EMG) signals from the sternocleidomastoid (STR) muscles using a Biopac MP 160 system (USA). As intuition would suggest, the reflexes of the muscles of the neck are sensitive to posture and the direction of the acceleration.
Car accidents frequently cause neck injuries that are painful, expensive, and difficult to simulate. The movements that lead to neck injury include phases in which the neck muscles are actively lengthened. Actively lengthened muscle can develop large forces that greatly exceed the maximum isometric force. Although Hill-type models are often used to simulate human movement, this model has no mechanism to develop large tensions during active lengthening. When used to simulate neck injury, a Hill model will underestimate the risk of injury to the muscles but may overestimate the risk of injury to the structures that the muscles protect. We have developed a musculotendon model that includes the viscoelasticity of attached crossbridges and has an active titin element. In this work we evaluate the proposed model to a Hill model by simulating the experiments of Leonard et al. [1] that feature extreme active lengthening.
