Development of a biomechanical spine model for dynamic analysis

Low back pain affects approximately 80% of the population at some point of their life, and lumbar degenerative disc disease is often indicated as the cause of that symptom. The mail goal of this work is to develop a biomechanical lumbar spine model, using multibody systems methodologies, useful for dynamic analysis, such as in the biomechanical behavior of pathologic and non-pathologic situations. Three subroutines were created to describe the work of ligaments, intervertebral discs and potential contact areas, using the multibody dynamics code MUBODYNA. The subroutines were tested using simple tests scenarios.