Experimental platforms to study blast injury

Abstract

Injuries sustained due to attacks from explosive weapons are multiple in number, complex in nature, and not well characterised. Blast may cause damage to the human body by the direct effect of overpressure, penetration by highly energised fragments, and blunt trauma by violent displacements of the body. The ability to reproduce the injuries of such insults in a well-controlled fashion is essential in order to understand fully the unique mechanism by which they occur, and design better treatment and protection strategies to alleviate the resulting poor long-term outcomes. This paper reports a range of experimental platforms that have been developed for different blast injury models, their working mechanism, and main applications. These platforms include the shock tube, split-Hopkinson bars, the gas gun, drop towers and bespoke underbody blast simulators.

Blast injury of the hand related to warfare explosive devices: experience from the French Military Health Service

“…Preferential injury to the dominant hand is a common feature: 80% in this series, 82% for Adhikari et al 22 and 89% for Hazani et al 20. The different effects of blast also explain the frequency of associated injuries and the haemodynamic instability observed in the initial phase in one-third of patients 1–4…”

“…Blast injuries are one of the most frequently encountered in modern asymmetrical conflicts where improvised explosive devices represent the most prevalent threat to coalition troops 1. Blast may cause damage to the human body by the direct effect of overpressure, penetration by highly energised fragments and blunt trauma by violent displacements of the body 2 3. Despite the biophysics and the fact that various effects of blast trauma have been well described in the modern medical literature, few papers have focused on combat-related blast injury of the hand 4–8…”

Defining and Managing Pain in Stroke and Traumatic Brain Injury Research

“…The impact acceleration injury model, 31,61,94 sometimes called specifically the weight-drop injury model, 21,60 does not require craniotomy; instead, a scalp incision may be used to provide access to cement a metal disc to the skull, thus allowing the dropped weight to create an acceleration injury without penetrating the skull. Unlike the majority of animal models of neurologic injury, the blast model 14,52,71,84 of TBI uses general trauma to the animal to generate the brain injury. These models, whether refined to create a mild or moderate brain injury, are capable of more fully recapitulating an important aspect of moderate to severe blast injury in humans, which is the associated shockwave and shrapnel with accompanying secondary tissue damage.…”

“…These models, whether refined to create a mild or moderate brain injury, are capable of more fully recapitulating an important aspect of moderate to severe blast injury in humans, which is the associated shockwave and shrapnel with accompanying secondary tissue damage. 71 To summarize, a primary and easily distinguished component of pain associated with stroke or TBI models is nociceptive pain, which can be expected to arise from headache as well as the surgical or traumatic process through which the injury is created.…”

Improving survivability from blast injury: ‘shifting the goalposts’ and the need for interdisciplinary research

“…Engineers, biologists, physicists and computer scientists all have important roles to play in an integrated research strategy. In this issue, Nguyen et al show the diverse experimental capabilities made possible by this form of academic cooperation 16. Successful collaboration requires the forging of a shared mission and the development of ‘T-shaped’ researchers who are able to cultivate their own discipline and look beyond it 17…”