Leckness Kegan, Nakmali Don, Gan Rong Z
School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Oklahoma, 865 Asp Avenue, Norman, OK 73019.
Mil Med. 2018 Mar 1;183(suppl_1):262-268. doi: 10.1093/milmed/usx226.
Hearing loss has become the most common disability among veterans. Understanding how blast waves propagate through the human ear is a necessary step in the development of effective hearing protection devices (HPDs). This article presents the first 3D finite element (FE) model of the human ear to simulate blast wave transmission through the ear. The 3D FE model of the human ear consisting of the ear canal, tympanic membrane, ossicular chain, and middle ear cavity was imported into ANSYS Workbench for coupled fluid-structure interaction analysis in the time domain. Blast pressure waveforms recorded external to the ear in human cadaver temporal bone tests were applied at the entrance of the ear canal in the model. The pressure waveforms near the tympanic membrane (TM) in the canal (P1) and behind the TM in the middle ear cavity (P2) were calculated. The model-predicted results were then compared with measured P1 and P2 waveforms recorded in human cadaver ears during blast tests. Results show that the model-derived P1 waveforms were in an agreement with the experimentally recorded waveforms with statistic Kurtosis analysis. The FE model will be used for the evaluation of HPDs in future studies.
听力损失已成为退伍军人中最常见的残疾。了解冲击波如何在人耳中传播是开发有效听力保护装置（HPD）的必要步骤。本文展示了首个用于模拟冲击波通过耳朵传播的人耳三维有限元（FE）模型。将由耳道、鼓膜、听骨链和中耳腔组成的人耳三维有限元模型导入ANSYS Workbench，以便在时域中进行流固耦合相互作用分析。在人体尸体颞骨测试中记录的耳朵外部的爆炸压力波形应用于模型中耳道的入口处。计算了耳道中靠近鼓膜（TM）处的压力波形（P1）和中耳腔中TM后方的压力波形（P2）。然后将模型预测结果与在爆炸测试期间人体尸体耳朵中记录的实测P1和P2波形进行比较。结果表明，通过统计峰度分析，模型得出的P1波形与实验记录的波形一致。该有限元模型将在未来的研究中用于评估听力保护装置。
