The prediction of primary blast injury in the lungs caused by complex blast loads

摘要

Primary blast injury to the lung is serious and life threatening. Primary injury is defined as that caused by the direct coupling of the blast pressure wave into hte human body. This paper presents details of a rig that has been developed to assess the vulnerability of personnel to blast and to aid the development of personal blast armours. A criterion has been developed (the Cumulative Sum Criterion) that processes the accelerometer outputs from the rig and predicts the proportion of the volume of the lung that is damaged. The rig, which ahs been evaluated in explosive events, is a unique approach to characterising the blast threat to personnel in realistic situations where the complexity of the blast loading has hitherto prevented biological effects from being predicted.