Evaluation of the Whole Body Spine Response to Sub-Injurious Vertical Loading
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Annals of Biomedical Engineering (Ó 2020) https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-020-02656-0
WIAMan Biomechanics
Evaluation of the Whole Body Spine Response to Sub-Injurious Vertical Loading KYLE A. OTT ,1 CONSTANTINE K. DEMETROPOULOS,1 MARY E. LUONGO,1 JACK M. TITUS,2 ANDREW C. MERKLE,1 and DAVID G. DREWRY III1 1
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD 20723-6099, USA; and 2Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, 900 West Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21223, USA (Received 23 June 2020; accepted 8 October 2020) Associate Editor Stefan M Duma oversaw the review of this article.
Abstract—It is critical to understand the relationship between under-body blast (UBB) loading and occupant response to provide optimal protection to the warfighter from serious injuries, many of which affect the spine. Previous studies have examined component and whole body response to accelerative based UBB loading. While these studies both informed injury prediction efforts and examined the shortcomings of traditional anthropomorphic test devices in the evaluation of human injury, few studies provide response data against which future models could be compared and evaluated. The current study examines four different loading conditions on a seated occupant that demonstrate the effects of changes in the floor, seat, personal protective equipment (PPE), and reclined posture on whole body post-mortem human surrogate (PMHS) spinal response in a sub-injurious loading range. Twelve PMHS were tested across floor velocities and time-to-peak (TTP) that ranged from 4.0 to 8.0 m/s and 2 to 5 ms, respectively. To focus on sub-injurious response, seat velocities were kept at 4.0 m/s and TTP ranged from 5 to 35 ms. Results demonstrated that spine response is sensitive to changes in TTP and the presence of PPE. However, spine response is largely insensitive to changes in floor loading. Data from these experiments have also served to develop response corridors that can be used to assess the performance and predictive capability of new test models used as human surrogates in high-rate vertical loading experiments. Keywords—Underbody blast, Injury, PMHS, Vertical loading, Response corridors, Spine, Biomechanics.
Address correspondence to Kyle A. Ott, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD 20723-6099, USA. Electronic mail: [email protected]
INTRODUCTION While underbody blast (UBB) events have been seen in armed conflict since the First World War,5 recent conflicts have featured an increased use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and have resulted in an increased incidence of UBB events. UBB events are characterized by short duration, high amplitude accelerative loading delivered through the vehicle structure both directly to the occupant and through the seat system.2 This type of loading induces a range of injuries to vehicle occupants from head and neck injuries,9 to upper and lower extremity injuries,12,18 to spinal injuries primarily in thoracolumbar junction an
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