Cervical spine compression responses.

Time-varying compressive loading was applied to unembalmed human cervical spines using an mts closed-loop hydraulic testing machine. Load programs included relaxation, cyclic loading, variable rate constant velocity loading (0.13-64 cm/sec), and constant velocity loading to failure. The failures produced were similar to those observed clinically. A generalized quasi-linear viscoelastic maxwell-weichert model incorporating a continuous relaxation spectrum was developed to predict the relaxation and constant velocity test responses. The fit was adequate considering the complexity of the structure involved.(a) for the covering abstract of the conference see irrd 275448.