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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 August 2014
Nowadays, backache risks due to professional activities remain high, while theirquantitative estimation is not well-known. Different methods have been developed todetermine the exposure of the spinal column to risk of damage. In Belgium, the “Fond desMaladies professionnelles” (FMP) suggests to use the “Mainz Dortmund Dosis” (MDD) methodto compute the exposure dose accumulated during the whole professional life. This methoduses the so-called biomechanical model “The Dortmunder” where the skeleton of the humanbody is represented by 30 rigid bodies to which certain abdominal and back muscles arelinked. This paper presents an implementation of the Dortmunder model with EasyDyn, aC++ library developed by theDepartment of Theoretical Mechanics, Dynamics and Vibrations of the University of Mons forsolving multibody problems, among others. Our model is first validated by comparing theobtained results with the one found in the literature. It is then used in a posture thatis not considered yet by the FMP. It is shown that working on ones knees can induce forcesin the back that increase the risk of backage.