Comparison of Neck Injury Criteria Values Across Human Body Models of Varying Complexity

Abstract

Due to the severity and frequency of cervical spine injuries, the neck injury criterion (Nij) was developed to provide a quantitative relationship between forces and moments of the upper neck with accompanied injury risk. The present study was undertaken to evaluate differences in calculated Nij for the Global Human Body Model Consortium's detailed and simplified average 50th percentile male models. The simplified model is a computationally light version of the more detailed model and therefore it is of interest to achieve similar Nij values between the two models. These models were compared in 15 match paired conditions of rigid head impact and a mixture of seven full body rigid hub and sled pulses, for 44 total simulations. Collectively, Nij values of the simplified model were found to exhibit a second-degree polynomial fit, allowing for a conversion to the prediction of the detailed model. Correlates were also derived for impact and inertial loading cases individually, for which the latter may be the subject of future work. The differences in Nij may be attributed to a variety of modeling approach differences related to neck muscles (attachment location and morphometric implementation), localization of head mass within the M50-OS, head geometry, and intervertebral joint space properties. With a primary focus on configurations in the anterior-posterior direction, there is a potential limitation in extensibility to lateral loading cases. In response to the relatively low Nij values exhibited, future work should evaluate the appropriateness of the established critical intercepts of Nij for computational human body models.

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“…It quantifies the relationship between upper neck forces and moments and the associated risk of injury. The calculation of Nij is shown below in the equation as a combination of axial force and moment in the sagittal plane, normalized by the critical intersection point of axial force and the intersection point of moment in the sagittal plane (Johnson et al, 2020).…”

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“…Therefore, they are preferred over ATD finite element models in such scenarios. When it comes to developing criteria for neck injuries, measuring the stress and strain that muscles and tissue ligaments can withstand is crucial [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ]. Advanced neck finite element modeling can provide dynamic responses of the system that are not possible with equivalent multibody models.…”