Car spring to bounce away whiplash injuries

A research team has created a computer model device that could help to reduce car crash injuries. The device - a collapsing spring fitted between the seat and the floor pan of the car - absorbs most of the impact in a motoring accident without bouncing back and thereby reduces the severity of whiplash injury.

Professor Richard Gentle - head of Nottingham Trent University's Biomechanics Research Group in the English Midlands - has been working on the computer-based device for five years. He applies biomechanics techniques that consider the body as an engineering structure, to research the effects of whiplash on the human body, particularly the spine and neck.

The team used test data from experiments conducted in Switzerland and the Netherlands involving volunteers sitting on conventional car seats bolted down on purpose-built sledges mounted on rails that travelled backwards into a buffer at 24 km/h. High-speed video was used to show the movements of markers placed on the volunteers to help explain what was happening.

"We can now study the loads on every individual ligament in the neck during a rear-end collision. We have shown that whiplash is a very real injury and we have identified the ligaments that are most at risk," said Prof. Gentle.

Prof. Gentle is now discussing with car seat manufacturers how this could be further developed, manufactured and used in future vehicle production.