THE DEVELOPMENT OF A FLOORING SYSTEM FOR INJURY MITIGATION AND STRUCTURAL ISOLATION IN UNDERBELLY BLAST EVENTS

The CAMEL program focused on force protection and demonstrated the possibility to protect occupants through higher underbelly blast levels than normally or previously observed. This required a holistic vehicle systems engineering approach to mitigate blast injuries that both optimized existing systems as well as developed new technologies. The result was zero injury to all occupants as assessed by 5^th, 50^th, and 95^th percentile encumbered ATDs during survivability blast testing. Twelve full scale objective-level blast tests were performed on over seventy fully-instrumented ATDs without a single lower-extremity injury. The lower limb protection was provided by an isolated floor system. This system was developed from the ground-up and occupant-out during the CAMEL program. This paper chronicles the CAMEL floor system’s creation, design, testing, and development process.