Chandra Namas, Sundaramurthy Aravind, Gupta Raj K
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Center for Injury Biomechanics, Materials and Medicine, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 111 Lock Street, Newark, NJ 07102-1982.
DOD Blast Injury Research Program Coordinating Office, HQ, U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command, 504 Scott Street, Fort Detrick, MD 21792-5012.
Mil Med. 2017 Mar;182(S1):105-113. doi: 10.7205/MILMED-D-16-00144.
Blast-induced neurotrauma has affected more than 300,000 service members. It is important to understand the effect of single and repeated shock-blast wave exposures on the neuropsychological behavior of soldiers, to offer them better protection, diagnostics, and treatment. Preclinical animal models and helmet design studies on human surrogate models have relied on the use of compression gas-driven shock tubes. Traditional shock tubes are so simple that if not carefully designed and operated, the test results can easily introduce detrimental artifacts clouding the conclusions. In this work, we present live-fire test results of an instrumented human surrogate head-neck model and compare with the data obtained in a carefully designed shock tube. We present various features incorporated in the shock tube design that led to better fidelity between live-fire and laboratory shock-blast conditions. The effect of specimen placement, choice of driver gas, pressure and volume of driver, end-plate conditions, and measurement techniques all determine the successful replication of live-fire loading conditions. These parameters become more important when conducting animal testing as the totality of loading will dictate the injury severity and type which ultimately will determine the mechanisms of blast-induced neurotrauma and hence their prevention and treatment strategies.
爆炸所致神经创伤已影响超过30万名军人。了解单次和反复冲击-爆炸波暴露对士兵神经心理行为的影响，对于为他们提供更好的保护、诊断和治疗至关重要。临床前动物模型以及人体替代模型的头盔设计研究一直依赖于使用压缩气体驱动的激波管。传统激波管非常简单，如果设计和操作不当，测试结果很容易引入有害的伪像，从而使结论模糊不清。在这项工作中，我们展示了一个装有仪器的人体替代头颈部模型的实弹测试结果，并与在精心设计的激波管中获得的数据进行比较。我们介绍了激波管设计中融入的各种特性，这些特性使得实弹和实验室冲击-爆炸条件之间具有更高的逼真度。标本放置、驱动气体的选择、驱动压力和体积、端板条件以及测量技术等因素都会影响实弹加载条件的成功复现。在进行动物试验时，这些参数变得更加重要，因为加载的总体情况将决定损伤的严重程度和类型，而这最终将决定爆炸所致神经创伤的机制，进而决定其预防和治疗策略。
