A computational study on brain tissue under blast: primary and tertiary blast injuries

Abstract

In this paper, a biomechanical study of a human head model exposed to blast shock waves followed by a blunt impact with the surface of the enclosing walls of a confined space is carried out. Under blast, the head may experience primary blast injury (PBI) due to exposure to the shockwaves and tertiary blast injury (TeBI) due to a possible blunt impact. We examine the brain response data in a deformable finite element head model in terms of the inflicted stress/pressure, velocity, and acceleration on the brain for several blast scenarios with different intensities. The data will be compared for open space and confined spaces. Following the initial impact of the shock front in the confined space, one can see the fluctuations in biomechanical data due to wave reflections. Although the severity of the PBI and TeBI is dependent on the situation, for the cases studied here, PBI is considerably more pronounced than TeBI in confined spaces.