Underbody Blast Testing (Army)
Abstract
To better protect mounted warriors from the effects of underbody blast (UBB) caused by landmines or Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), UBB Testing medical research project will provide new data on the biomechanics of human skeletal response that occurs in an attack on a ground combat vehicle. The data will provide a biomedical basis for the development of a Warrior-representative blast test manikin (the Warrior Injury Assessment Manikin or WIAMan project) and the required biomedically-valid injury criteria that can be used in Title 10 Live Fire Test and Evaluation (LFT&E) to characterize dynamic events, the risk of injury to mounted warriors, and to support acquisition decisions. This new data will also benefit the overall DoD effort in vehicle and protection technology for the UBB threat. This work is needed to overcome the limitations of the current test manikin and injury criteria which were designed for the civilian automotive industry for frontal crash testing and as such are not adequate in the combat environment. The current manikins do not represent the modern Warrior and were not designed for the vertical acceleration environment associated with UBB events. Consequently, current LFT&E crew survivability assessment methodologies are limited in their ability to predict the types and severity of injuries seen in these events. Due to this technology gap, military ground vehicles are being fielded without fully defined levels of injury risk and crew survivability for UBB events. The data produced by this project will be used to satisfy a critical need for a scientifically valid capability for analyzing the risk of injury caused by UBB.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Project
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2021
- Source ID
- 431A_0603115DHA_2_0130_PB_2021
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