Multiscale Model of Lung Injury and Personnel Protection from Blast Overpressures in Confined Areas

Explosive devices are the preferred weapon in the majority of terrorist attacks and cause of major injuries to soldiers and civilians. Military medics and future first responders must be educated in the unique blast injury pathophysiology to make decisions in diagnosis, resuscitation, and treatment planning. The objective of this project is to develop high fidelity, multiscale, physiology-based modeling tools of blast injuries to the brain and lung. The software tools will simulate the explosion blast loads on the human body, human body biodynamics, and biomechanics of vulnerable organs including head/brain and thorax/lungs as well as pathophysiology of injury. The multiscale modeling concept developed in this study will integrate the injury responses at the cellular, organ, and whole body level. For the blast brain injury we will model the biomechanics of brain tissue-skull interaction, vascular hemorrhage and hematoma formation, diffuse axonal injury as well as brain and systemic metabolic responses such as hypoxia and ischemia. The model will be validated against experimental animal and surrogate data of blast wave and focal impact injury. The integrated model will be demonstrated by modeling brain and lung injury in various explosion scenarios and by analysis of resuscitation and treatment planning procedures. A virtual assessment modeling framework for personal protection armor including novel helmets and chest vests will be demonstrated.