Application of a Standard Quantitative Comparison Method to Assess a Full Body Finite Element Model in Frontal Impact

Advanced human body finite element models (FEMs) are gaining popularity in the study of injury biomechanics [1, 2]. FEMs must be validated to ensure that model outputs correspond to experimentally-observed phenomena. During the validation process researchers often qualitatively compare the model response to a laboratory experiment. However, a more rigorous approach is to use quantitative methods. Often, these methods attempt to parse the error contributions of phase, magnitude, and a shape factor. The purpose of this study is to apply one such method for validation quantification, called the enhanced error assessment of response time histories (EEARTH), to a model that was recently developed. The EEARTH method is anticipated to be part of the forthcoming ISO standard (ISO/TC 22/SC 10/WG 4) on comparing model outcomes to experimental data. The subject of this study is the Global Human Body Models Consortium (GHBMC) 50 ^th percentile male seated model (M50). The mission statement of the consortium is to develop a set of biofidelic computational human body models to aid in the study injury biomechanics and safety system enhancement.