Work

Skull Flexure from Blast Waves: A Mechanism for Brain Injury with Implications for Helmet Design

Year: 2009

Type: article

Abstract: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) has become a signature injury of current military conflicts, with debilitating, costly, and long-lasting effects. Although mechanisms by which head impacts cause TBI have been well researched, the mechanisms by which blasts cause TBI are not understood. From numerical hydrodynamic simulations, we have discovered that nonlethal blasts can induce sufficient skull flexure to generate potentially damaging loads in the brain, even without a head impact. The possibility that this mechanism may contribute to TBI has implications for injury diagnosis and armor design.

Source: Physical Review Letters

DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.103.108702

Authors: William C. Moss, Michael J. King, Eric G. Blackman

Institutions: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of Rochester

Language: English

Topic: Automotive and Human Injury Biomechanics

Subfield: Biomedical Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W1963632405

FWCI: 10.28

Cites: 22

Cited by: 258

Related to: 10