An assessment of blast modelling techniques for injury biomechanics research
File(s)cnm.3258.pdf (1.31 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Yu, Xiancheng
Ghajari, Mazdak
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Blast-induced Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) has been affecting combatants and civilians. The blast pressure wave is thought to have a significant contribution to blast related TBI. Due to the limitations and difficulties of conducting blast tests on surrogates, computational modelling has been used as a key method for exploring this field. However, the blast wave modelling methods reported in current literature have drawbacks. They either cannot generate the desirable blast pressure wave history, or they are unable to accurately simulate the blast wave/structure interaction. In addition, boundary conditions, which can have significant effects on model predictions, have not been described adequately. Here, we critically assess the commonly used methods for simulating blast wave propagation in air (open-field blast) and its interaction with the human body. We investigate the predicted blast wave time history, blast wave transmission and the effects of various boundary conditions in 3 dimensional (3D) models of blast prediction. We propose a suitable meshing topology, which enables accurate prediction of blast wave propagation and interaction with the human head and significantly decreases the computational cost in 3D simulations. Finally, we predict strain and strain rate in the human brain during blast wave exposure and show the influence of the blast wave modelling methods on the brain response. The findings presented here can serve as guidelines for accurately modelling blast wave generation and interaction with the human body for injury biomechanics studies and design of prevention systems.
Date Issued
2019-12
Date Acceptance
2019-09-01
Citation
International Journal for Numerical Methods in Biomedical Engineering, 2019, 35 (12), pp.1-15
ISSN
1069-8299
Publisher
Wiley
Start Page
1
End Page
15
Journal / Book Title
International Journal for Numerical Methods in Biomedical Engineering
Volume
35
Issue
12
Copyright Statement
© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. This is the accepted version of the following article: Yu, X, Ghajari, M. An assessment of blast modelling techniques for injury biomechanics research. Int J Numer Meth Biomed Engng. 2019; 35:e3258, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/cnm.3258
Sponsor
The Royal British Legion
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31518061
Grant Number
BMPF_P60304
Subjects
Science & Technology
Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Physical Sciences
Engineering, Biomedical
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Mathematics, Interdisciplinary Applications
Engineering
Mathematics
TRAUMATIC BRAIN-INJURY
HEAD
RESPONSES
01 Mathematical Sciences
09 Engineering
Applied Mathematics
Publication Status
Published online
Coverage Spatial
England
Date Publish Online
2019-09-13