An investigation of blast wave transmission through rodent simulants

The most prevalent injuries incurred by today’s warfighters are traumatic brain injuries caused by exposure to explosively generated blast waves. The protection of soldiers is paramount, so research into the effect of blast waves on the brain and body has been ongoing so that more effective protective equipment can be created. Historically, this research has been done by subjecting live rodents to blast waves and analyzing them post-mortem. There are many drawbacks to live animal testing that make a surrogate test article an attractive prospect. The goals of the current work are to 1.) develop a bio-fidelic instrumented surrogate rat model for use in blast testing and 2.) validate a computational model’s ability to accurately predict the propagation of blast waves throughout the surrogate rat. To validate the computational model, experiments have been performed in which the pressure-time history is measured at locations inside simplified rat surrogates. These simplified surrogates include spheres made from tissue substitute, multi-material spheres with an inner core of tissue substitute and an outer shell of bone substitute, and ogive shaped articles made from tissue simulant. For simple shapes, the computational model has been shown to match experimental results reasonably well. More complex shapes are planned to put more strain on the computational model for stronger validation.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Mechanical Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2021

Author dc:creator

• Butler, Austin Josiah

Contributors dc:contributor

• Glumac, Nick G
• Krier, Herman

• blast wave
• explosives
• pressure measurement
• rodent testing

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2020 Austin Josiah Butler

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/109522

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/109522