Abstract: With the rapid development of automobile industry，recent new cars are equiped with advanced passen-ger restraint system，which can better protect the occupants． However，the rate of thoracolumbar fractures is in-creasing year by year after the new car encounters frontal impact． Based on the geometry of GHBMC lumbar verte-brae model，a finite element model of human lumbar vertebrae with more accurate ligament parameters was estab-lished． By processing the experimental data of published papers，the tensile load curves of various ligaments and the corresponding load tensile curves under different loading rates were obtained，and the effects of the different pa-rameters of ligaments (ligament stiffness，failure zone，relaxation zone，the effect of strain rate) on lumbar spine injury was studied． A finite element model of lumbar spine with different curvature was constructed to study the effect of curvature on lumbar injury． Ｒesults show that ligament parameters and lumbar spine curvature has a great effect on lumbar spine response: the lower the stiffness of lumbar ligaments，the higher the risk of lumbar vertebrae injury; after considering the relaxation and failure areas of ligaments，the risk of lumbar vertebrae injury increases;considering the strain rate response of ligament load curve under high impact speed，the higher the impact speed，the higher the risk of lumbar vertebrae injury． At the same time，the vertical lumbar vertebrae has higher risk of lum-bar spinal injury than the bending lumbar vertebrae． The results are conducive to the design of occupant protection．

Key words: automotive impact safety, lumbar spine injury, ligaments, finite element method, biomechanics