Blast Mitigation Jacket for Training

Certain weapons produce blast waves capable of trauma to gas-filled organs. There is an immediate need for a blast mitigation jacket to prevent lung damage when training with such weapons, and a similar need for combatants. Our first objective in PhaseII is to complete the research and development of fundamental blast mitigation concepts developed during Phase I. During Phase I, we used analytical and computational methods to develop our concepts, which include usage of clothing materials and airspaces to manipulate the hazardous blast waves. We tested our concepts experimentally with a shock tube that we built during Phase I of this project. The second Phase II objective is to develop prototype jackets. The third objective is to demonstrate theeffectiveness of the prototype jackets experimentally. An instrumented rig for shock tube and open-field experiments will be developed. We will characterize soft materials dynamically with our split Hopkinson pressure bar. We will continue collaboratingwith Natick Soldier Center to develop jacket prototypes, and to combine blast mitigation features into ballistic jackets. Dominca's firm grasp of wave mechanics, combined with specialty computational tools and test equipment, will lead to an effectivejacket prototype.