title: Comparison of cervical vertebrae rotations for PMHS and BioRID II in rear impacts.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The objectives of this study are to propose a new instrumentation technique for measuring cervical spine kinematics, validate it, and apply the instrumentation technique to postmortem human subjects (PMHS) in rear impact sled tests so that cervical motions can be investigated.
  
  
  METHODS
  First, a new instrumentation and dissection technique is proposed in which instrumentation (3 accelerometers, 3 angular rate sensors) capable of measuring the detailed intervertebral kinematics are installed on the anterior aspects of each vertebral body with minimal muscular damage. The instrumentation was validated by conducting 10 km/h rear impact tests with 2 PMHS in a rigid rolling chair. After this validation, a total of 14 sled tests using 8 male PMHS (175 ± 6.9 cm stature and 78.4 ± 7.7 kg weight) were conducted in 2 moderate-speed rear impacts (8.5 g, 17 km/h; 10.5 g, 24 km/h). A current rear impact dummy, BioRID II, was also tested under the same condition with an angular rate sensor installed on each of the cervical vertebrae so that rotations of the cervical spine of the BioRID II could be compared to those measured from the PMHS. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) biofidelity ranking system was used for quantitative analysis of the BioRID II cervical spine biofidelity.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Results show that the BioRID II exhibited comparable rotations to the PMHS in the 17 km/h test, but the vertebrae in the lower cervical spine (C5-C7) of the BioRID II showed less rearward rotation than the PMHS. For the 24 km/h test, the vertebrae in the cervical spine of the BioRID II exhibited less rearward rotation than the PMHS at all levels (C2-C7). The average biofidelity score for C2 through C7 was 1.02 for the 17 km/h test, and 2.27 for the 24 km/h test.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results reflect the fact that the fully articulated spine of the BioRID II was designed and tuned to model low speed rear impacts. The intervertebral rotations for both the PMHS and the BioRID II were primarily relative flexion rotations even though the cervical vertebrae rotated rearward with respect to the global coordinate system.
authors.affiliation: Injury Biomechanics Research Laboratory, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Yun-Seok
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Moorhouse
authors.forename: Rod
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Herriott
authors.forename: John H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Bolte
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D002102:Cadaver; D002574:Cervical Vertebrae / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008348:Manikins; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012399:Rotation