Blast-Induced Acceleration in a Shock Tube

The prevalence of blast-induced traumatic brain injury (bTBI) has prompted an urgent need to develop improved mitigation strategies and advance medical care targeting casualties with bTBI. Despite considerable effort, the basic mechanisms of blast-induced brain injury are still undefined. Based largely upon computational modeling, several candidate mechanisms of nonimpact bTBI have been identified and include head acceleration. This work hypothesizes that explosion flow conditions can cause head acceleration sufficient to injure the brain, and that these inertial forces combine with other injury mechanisms to yield bTBI.