Citation

King AI. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 2010; 127(3): 1790.

Affiliation

Dept. of Biomedical Eng., Wayne State Univ., 818 W. Hancock, Detroit, MI 48202, king@rrb.eng.wayne.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, American Institute of Physics)

DOI

10.1121/1.3383971

PMID

20330226

Abstract

A combined experimental and numerical study was conducted to elucidate the mechanical response of a head surrogate under air shock loading. A gel-filled egg-shaped skullbrain surrogate was exposed to blast overpressure in a shock tube environment, and static pressures within the shock tube and the surrogate were recorded throughout the event. A numerical model of the shock tube was developed using the Eulerian approach and it was validated against experimental data. An arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) based fluid-structure coupling algorithm was then utilized to simulate the interaction of the shock wave with the head surrogate. A comprehensive parametric study was carried out to assess the effect of several key parameters on model response. The curvature of the surface facing the shock wave significantly affected both peak positive and negative pressures. Biological experiments exposing anesthetized rats to shock waves, using the same shock tube, produced brain injury in the form glial cell activation which in turn can adversely affect the function of axons and neurons. This injury mechanism is not the same as that for blunt impacts to the head which causes direct diffuse axonal injury.

Language: en