BLAST CASUALTY PREDICTION-PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.
Abstract
The report provides a summary, critique, and extension of techniques for predicting blast casualties from nuclear detonations. We review and analyze the two contrasting approaches previously used, i.e., the study of specialized problems and the extrapolation of empirical casualty statistics. We derive explicit, analytic expressions for translational casualty ranges for limiting cases of blast-wave behavior. We demonstrate that, for megaton yields, every translational casualty range varies as the cube root of the yield and thus corresponds to a constant value of peak overpressure. We further demonstrate that blast casualty criteria are currently known with more than sufficient accuracy and that, by far, the greatest uncertainty concerns the blast environment within structures. Consequently, for predicting blast casualties, the major problem area lies in mechanics not biology. We further analyze and characterize the structure of casualty prediction problems and show, for example, that, for any exposure environment, the range distribution of casualties is tightly clustered around the median value. We describe explicitly the general procedure for synthesizing total casualty predictions from the results of specialized problems. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 1968
- Accession Number
- AD0668342
Entities
People
- John J. Shea