Towards occupant protections for both men and women

The susceptibility of female occupants to Whiplash Associated Disorders (WADs) has been the focus over the past decades. To improve occupant protections, it is required to understand how gender differences affect the WAD injury mechanisms. The purpose of this study is to investigate the potential impact of the whole spinal alignment on the cervical vertebral kinematics and ligament elongation during a rear impact by analysing rear impact reconstruction simulations. The simulations demonstrated a potential impact of gender differences in whole spinal alignment on cervical vertebral kinematics and ligament elongations. It seems that the average female spinal alignment may expose women to larger deformation of the cervical soft tissues considered related to WAD, due to greater cervical vertebral kinematics, compared to the average male spinal alignment. The findings highlight the importance of the whole spinal alignment when developing female models to evaluate WAD countermeasures, and may thus improve occupant protection for women as well as men