Blast Overpressure Studies. Part II: Nonauditory Damage-Risk Assessment for Simulated Weapons Fired 100 Times from an Enclosure

Abstract

Anesthetized sheep were exposed to a reverberant wave environment like that produced from firing an antitank weapon from a room. The simulation was accomplished by detonating C4 explosives outside a chamber of 18.2 m3 volume. The blast wave traveled into the chamber through a 20-cm I.D. tube and was reflected off the back wall and subsequently throughout the chamber. The resulting waveform very closely approximated that generated by a Carl-Gustav antitank weapon fired from a chamber. Part I of the studies indicated that for a series of 1 shot or 3 shots, 2.5 minutes apart, multiple shots have a strong additive effect, decreasing the subthreshold levels. The subthreshold for a single blast was estimated to be above a peak of 48 kPa. The subthreshold for 3 exposures was estimated to be at 44 kPa. This study, called Part II, used 100 shots, 1 minute apart. For this exposure, a subthreshold peak of at least 23 kPa was verified using 19 animals.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 1997
Accession Number
ADA334995

Entities

People

  • Barbara Merickel
  • Daniel L Johnson
  • John T. Yelverton
  • William Hicks

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Anti-Tank Weapons
  • Blast
  • Blast Waves
  • Data Analysis
  • Explosions
  • Explosives
  • Gun Barrels
  • Instrumentation
  • Laboratory Animals
  • Materials
  • Medical Personnel
  • Plastic Explosives
  • Simulations
  • Simulators
  • Waveforms
  • Waves
  • Weapons

Readers

  • Auditory Neuroscience/Auditory Physiology.
  • Combustion and Flow Dynamics.
  • Explosive Engineering.