Physics and Physiology Based Human Body Model of Blast Injury and Protection

Reports of military and civilian blast related injuries are reported daily by the media from all over the world. Limited understanding of the physics of blast-human body interaction and injury biomechanics hinder the development of protective measures. Experiments using animal models, cadavers and physical surrogates are costly, slow and mostly inadequate. We propose to develop anatomically consistent, articulated human body model and computational tools of blast physics and body injury biomechanics to enable fast and accurate simulation of blast and ballistic injury casualty estimation, and development of novel personal protective equipment. In Phase I we will design and develop a prototype simulation framework for modeling a human body anthropometry, anatomy and posture relevant for military blast exposure scenarios. A material property database base of various tissues and organs and a GUI framework will be established to enable generation of injury biomechanics models and simulations. In phase I we will conduct model validation simulations of human body responses to a free filed blast and a human sitting in a combat vehicle exposed to underbody blast. In Phase II the body model will be extended to simulate protective clothing, armor and equipment. The integrated tools and model will be validated against blast injury data, demonstrated for various blast injury scenarios and delivered to the Army.