A comparison of injury criteria used in evaluating seats for whiplash protection

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Tencer, Allan F.¹; Mirza, Sohail¹; Huber, Philippe¹

A comparison of injury criteria used in evaluating seats for whiplash protection

Proceedings of the 18th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV)

Affiliations

¹Orthopedic Sciences Laboratory, Department of Orthopedics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States
Abstract

A protocol has been proposed for testing seats for whiplash protection, however injury criteria were not chosen. Assuming that whiplash symptoms arise from non-physiological motions of vertebral segments, we determined the ability of proposed criteria to predict peak individual vertebral displacements. Volunteers were subjected to rear impacts while seated in a car seat with head restraint, mounted onto a sled. Then, the seat was replaced by a platform onto which were mounted cadaveric cervico-thoracic spines. Head and T1 accelerations and individual vertebral sagittal (XZ) plane rotations and translations were obtained. Proposed injury criteria were tested for their ability to predict peak intervertebral displacements. Cadaveric specimens had chest and head X (horizontal) and Z (vertical) linear accelerations similar to volunteers whose heads hit the head restraint. The best predictors were: Nd shear and peak posterior translation (0.80), Nd extension and peak extension angle (r2 = 0.70), and Nd distraction and peak distraction (0.51). Therefore consideration should be given to a displacement based injury criteria such as Nd.
Links

URL: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv18/CD/Files/18ESV-000099.pdf

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Cited By (4)

Year	Entry
2005	Kuppa S, Saunders J, Stammen J, Mallory A. Kinematically based whiplash injury criterion. In: Proceedings of the 19th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). June 6-9, 2005; Washington, DC.
2005	Muñoz D, Mansilla A, López-Valdés F, Martín R. A study of current neck injury criteria used for whiplash analysis: proposal of a new criterion involving upper and lower neck load cells. In: Proceedings of the 19th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). June 6-9, 2005; Washington, DC.
2009	Kang Y, Moorhouse K, Herriott RG, Bolte JH IV. A new instrumentation technique for the cervical spine of PMHS in rear impacts. In: Proceedings of the 5th Ohio State University Injury Biomechanics Symposium. May 17-19, 2009; Columbus, OH.
2012	Kang Y-S, Bolte JH IV, Moorhouse K, Donnelly B, Herriott R, Mallory A. Biomechanical responses of PMHS in moderate-speed rear impacts and development of response targets for evaluating the internal and external biofidelity of ATDs. Stapp Car Crash J. October 2012;56:105-170.