Master of Science in Bioengineering, University of Toledo, 0, Bioengineering

Whiplash sprains and/or strains occur in 28-53% of motor vehicle collision victims, making it the most common type of injury in these collisions. The costs annually in the United States of whiplash injury are approximately between 4.5 to 8 billion dollars. Whiplash can have long-term symptoms which can lead to chronic pain. Theories have linked the risk of whiplash injury to facet joints, ligaments, intervertebral discs, vertebral arteries, dorsal root ganglia, and neck muscles. Head restraints were invented in the 1960s to reduce spinal motion by limiting relative motion between the head and thorax. The effectiveness of headrests in reducing injury has been limited to only 13 to 18% reduction in neck injury claims. It was reported that 85% of all whiplash injuries occur during rear-end impacts. A detailed cervical model was created using a female CT scan. The scan was imported into Mimics. The model was meshed in IA-FEMesh and then imported into ABAQUS. The headrest model was created in SolidWorks and meshed in 3-Matic. All of the material properties were derived from literature. The bony structures were modeled as linear elastic material models and the discs and ligaments were modeled as non-linear models. This thesis aims to provide a detailed cervical spine finite element model and studies the effect of headrest material properties, initial headrest distance, and T1 acceleration magnitudes on the risk of whiplash injury. The initial goal was to validate the model under static and dynamic loading. Static validation was done in flexion/extension, lateral bending, and axial rotation and comparing the data with cadaver means and standard deviations. Dynamic loading was performed by providing an input acceleration pulse to T1 and comparing the segmental motion with the cadaver data corridors. A sled dummy test performed at The University of Toledo was used as input variables to the finite element model. An HIII 50th percentile dummy was used for the test. The Y (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Vijay Goel Ph.D. (Advisor); Anand Agarwal M.D. (Committee Member); Scott Molitor Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Biomedical Engineering