Air blast injuries killed the crew of the submarine H.L. Hunley

Abstract

The submarine H.L. Hunley was the first submarine to sink an enemy ship during combat; however, the cause of its sinking has been a mystery for over 150 years. The Hunley set off a 61.2 kg (135 lb) black powder torpedo at a distance less than 5 m (16 ft) off its bow. Scaled experiments were performed that measured black powder and shock tube explosions underwater and propagation of blasts through a model ship hull. This propagation data was used in combination with archival experimental data to evaluate the risk to the crew from their own torpedo. The blast produced likely caused flexion of the ship hull to transmit the blast wave; the secondary wave transmitted inside the crew compartment was of sufficient magnitude that the calculated chances of survival were less than 16% for each crew member. The submarine drifted to its resting place after the crew died of air blast trauma within the hull.

Bibliometric analysis of bioeconomy research in South Africa

“…The African Journal of Marine Science, Journal Water SA and Journal African Entomology followed with 155, 150 and 139 number of publications respectively for the period 2008 to 2018. PLoS One Journal covers primary research from disciplines within science and medicine (Dash Nelson and Rae 2016; Boë et al 2017;Fuss et al 2017;Gravett et al 2017;Hallmann et al 2017;Lance et al 2017;Mack and Wrase 2017). Scientific disciplinary performance of South Africa between 1996 and 2016 was the highest in the life sciences in terms of the number of publications, with a percentage share of 45.5 (NACI 2017).…”