Calculating muscle activation

[Karan Devane]

Hi Everyone,

I am a beginner in OpenSim.

I want to calculate muscle activation for all skeletal muscles for a frontal impact simulation. I have all the required reaction forces as well as the kinematics from the experiment. Is it possible to simulate braced condition of the volunteer using OpenSim. If yes then what process I should use. First I thought, I can use static optimization for it but when I applied foot forces to feet and seat-back forces to pelvis, the static optimization failed to optimize. What I am trying to do is to make sure that by varying the muscle activation I can simulate both relaxed and braced conditions.

I have following question,
1. Do I need to model the whole setup along with contact modeling?
2. Is static optimization the right tool for my study?
3. Is there a full body model available with all muscles?

Thanks,
-Karan