A Software Tool for Predicting Neck Loads and Fatigue During Military Mission Tasks Navy SBIR FY2010.2 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2010.2 Topic No.: N102-170 Topic Title: A Software Tool for Predicting Neck Loads and Fatigue During Military Mission Tasks Proposal No.: N102-170-0162 Firm: CFD Research Corporation 215 Wynn Dr., 5th Floor Huntsville, Alabama 35805 Contact: Xianlian Zhou Phone: (256) 726-4849 Web Site: www.cfdrc.com Abstract: 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. Benefits: This work will result in an interactive software framework for predicting Warfighters' neck loads during various operational tasks. The models implemented in this project can be used to study various aspects of human subjects, including biomechanical and physiological performance under short term or long term biomechanical loading (such as helmet, NVG) in work or combat environment. This technology will be directly applicable to most DoD branches, law enforcement, sports equipment manufacturers, and vehicle manufacturers, and medical rehabilitation device manufacturers. Return