A Software Tool for Predicting Neck Loads and Fatigue During Military Mission Tasks

The overall objective of the proposed project is to develop an interactive software tool for neck load prediction during warfighting posture and maneuvers. The software will be a validated simulation environment for predicting Warfighter"s neck loads during realistic and repetitive tasks incorporating musculoskeletal fatigue and injury factors. The goal of the Phase I work is to build a prototype software and demonstrate its applicability on common mission tasks, such as marching, running, and jumping. This software will utilize state-of-the-art human neck musculoskeletal models combined with whole body level-of-detail models to accurately analyze the muscle and joint forces. To account for fatigue and the onset of potential injury, realistic physiological and physics based muscle fatigue and injury models will be developed and validated. In Phase II, the developed software tool will be used to design an improved helmet system to optimize neck loads over various duration and operational tasks and consequently minimizing fatigue and injury. The final software product will be an easy-to-use and interactive graphics based software tool that can be used by military R & D engineers and acquisition professionals to design and analyze head-supported devices.