Numerical modeling and characterization of blast waves for application in blast-induced mild traumatic brain injury research

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2016-01-01
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Phillips, Michael
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Jonathan D. Regele
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Altmetrics
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Aerospace Engineering
Abstract

Human exposure to blast waves, including blast-induced traumatic brain injury, is a developing field in medical research. Experiments with explosives have many disadvantages including safety, cost, and required area for trials. Shock tubes provide an alternative method to produce free field blast wave profiles. A compressed nitrogen shock tube experiment instrumented with static and reflective pressure taps is modeled using a numerical simulation. The geometry of the numerical model is simplified and blast wave characteristics are derived based upon static and pressure profiles. The pressure profiles are analyzed along the shock tube centerline and radially away from the tube axis. The blast wave parameters found from the pressure profiles provide guidelines for spatial location of a specimen. The location could be based on multiple parameters and provides a distribution of anticipated pressure profiles experience by the specimen.

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Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 UTC 2016