Mechanism of Blast and Impact Energy Transfer Into the Head of the Helmeted Warfighter
Abstract
"The annual program plan for this contract articulates two Tasks for Year 3. Task 1 is to apply the optical transducers and BIPED headform to document energy transfers into the BIPED during blast and impact exposure. Task 2 is to finalize evaluation of dynamic failure processes in blast and compression experiments. Related to Task 1, we have applied the BIPED with optical transducers in experiments where the BIPED has been exposed to both blast overpressure and blunt impact. The measurements from the optical transducers and other instrumentation that is in-situ in the BIPED have demonstrated repeatability, conveying that the BIPED and its instrumentation is a repeatable model, and have demonstrated that the presence of head protection may alter the magnitudes of pressures in the simulant brain, the magnitudes of contact forces between the skull and brain, and finally may alter the frequency content of these mechanics. To our knowledge, this is the first research to document these effects for blast and impact using a simulant based headform (i.e. the BIPED). Details on optical transducers and the BIPED and associated experiments can be found in the journal publications listed at the bottom of this page. Related to Task 2, we have performed strain-rate and stress-state dependent measurements of stress-strain and failure responses for a variety of foam materials (e.g., two D3O variants, Poron, and various types of Vinyl Nitrile). This includes a forthcoming publication on the thermomechanical response and microstructure evolution in D3O during tensile loading that will be submitted to Materials Science and Engineering A. Next, we will prepare a paper that investigates the rate-dependent compressive response of two variants of D3O foams (sold as a shear thickening foam), where experiments have been performed for strain-rates of quasi-static (at U of A), intermediate (at ARL), dynamic (at U of A), and for plate impact (at ARL). This information will contribute to the limited literature on the rate-dependent behavior of foams. Following these efforts, we will study Team Wendy foams. Details are included herein."
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- May 10, 2019
- Source ID
- W911NF1620083
Entities
People
- James D Hogan
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- United States Army
- University of Alberta