Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Small Scale Models Subjected to Buried Blast Loading Part I: Floorboard Accelerations and Related Passenger Injury Metrics with Protective Hulls

  • Published:
Experimental Mechanics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Small scale models representing key vehicle structural elements, including both floorboards and bottom-mounted, downward V-shape hulls in various configurations, have been manufactured and subjected to a range of buried blast loading conditions. By varying surface stand-off distance and depth of burial for several hull and structure configurations, the input-scaled response of aluminum full-scale vehicle floorboards has been quantified using high speed stereo-vision. Specifically, the maximum vertical acceleration on the floorboard and the corresponding Head Injury Criterion (HIC15) are quantified as metrics to assess the severity of the blast event. Results show standard V-shaped hulls provide essential blast mitigation, with reductions in floorboard measurements up to 47X in maximum acceleration and HIC15. Though variations in protective hull geometry provide modest reductions in the severity of a floorboard blast event, results also show that personnel on typical floorboard structures during blast loading events will incur unacceptable shock loading conditions, resulting in either serious or fatal injury. A more appropriate design scenario would be to consider situations that employ frame-mounted passenger seating to reduce the potential for injury. A second set of experiments will be presented in Part II that focuses on frame motions and accelerations when steel frames and steel structures are employed with various frame connections and coatings for frame blast mitigation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
Fig. 16
Fig. 17
Fig. 18

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Review of video data indicates that each plate-frame structure moves upward rigidly, with minimal rotation, during the first 36 ms after initial detonation. This was true for all experiments performed in this study.

References

  1. Head H (1920) The sense of stability and balance in the Air. The Medical Problems of Flying, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  2. Brown JL, Lechner M (1956) Acceleration and human performance; a survey of research. J Aviat Med 27(1):32–49

    Google Scholar 

  3. Duane T (1953) Preliminary Investigation into the Study of the Fundus Oculi of Human Subjects under Positive Acceleration. (Report No. NADC-MA-5303). Naval Air Development Center, Johnsville, PA

    Google Scholar 

  4. Stoll A (1956) Human tolerance to positive G as determined by the physiological End points. J Aviat Med 27(4):356–67

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  5. Eiband M (1959) Human tolerance to rapidly applied accelerations: a summary of the literature. Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, OH

    Google Scholar 

  6. Gurdjian ES, Lissner HR, Latimer FR, Haddad BF, Webster JE (1953) Quantitative determination of acceleration and intercranial pressure in experimental head inury. Neurology 3:417–423

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Gurdjian ES, Roberts VL, Thomas LM (1964) Tolerance curves of acceleration and intercranial pressure and protective index in experimental head injury. J Trauma 600

  8. Gurdjian ES, Hodgson VR, Hardy WG, Patrick LM, Lissner HR (1964) Evaluation of the Protective Characteristics of Helmets in Sports. J Trauma 4

  9. Stech E, Payne P (1969) Dynamics of the human body (AD701383). Froster Engineering Development Corporation, Englewood CO

    Google Scholar 

  10. Verse J (1971) A review of the Severity Index. SAE Paper 710881. Proc. 15th Stapp Crash Conf. 771–795

  11. Goldsmith W (1979) Some aspects of head and neck injury and protection. Progress in biomechanics. Sijthoff and Noordhoff, Alphen aan den Rijn, pp 333–377

    Google Scholar 

  12. Hutchinson J, Kaiser MJ, Lankarani HM (1998) The head injury crtiterion (HIC) functional[J]. Appl Math Comput 96:1–16

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  13. Marjoux D, Baumgartner D, Deck C, Willinger R (2008) Head injury prediction capability of the HIC, HIP, SIMon and ULP criteria. Accid Anal Prev 40:1135–1148

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Department of Defense (1998) Crew Systems Crash Protection Handbook (JSSG-2010-7). Washington D.C.

  15. US Army Aviation Systems Command (1989)

  16. Eppinger et al. (1999) Development of Improved Injury Criteria for the Assessment of Advanced Automotive Restraint Systems-II. NHTSA, Nov

  17. Eppinger et al. (2000) Supplement: Development of Improved Injury Criteria for the Assessment of Advanced Automotive Restraint Systems-II. NHTSA, March

  18. Nurick GN, Shave GC (1995) The deformation and tearing of thin square plates subjected to impulsive loads-an experimental study. Int J Impact Eng 18(1):99–116

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Jacob N, Chung KYS, Nurick GN, Bonorchis D, Desai SA, Tait D (2004) Scaling aspect of quadrangular plates subjected to localized blast loads-experiments and prediction. Int J Impact Eng 30:1179–1208

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Nurick GN, Martin JB (1989) Deformation of thin plates subjected to impulsive loading-a review. Part II: experimental studies. Int J Impact Eng 8(2):171–86

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Jacob N, Nurick GN, Langdon GS (2007) The effect of stand-off distance on the failure of fully clamped circular mild steel plate subjected to blast loads. Eng Struct 29:2723–2736

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Fourney WL, Leiste U, Bonenberger R, Goodings D (2005) Mechanism of loading on plates due to detonation. Fragblast Int J Blasting Fragm 9(4):205–217

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Fourney WL, Leiste U, Bonenberger R, Goodings D (2006) Explosive impulse on plates. Fragblast Int J Blasting Fragm 9(1):1–17

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Fourney WL, Leiste U, Taylor L (2008) Pressures acting on targets subjected to explosive loading. Fragblast Int. J. Blasting Fragm 2:167–187

    Google Scholar 

  25. Shcleyer GK, Lowak MJ, Poleyn MA, Langdon GS (2007) Experimental investigation of blast wall panels under shock pressure loading. Int J Impact Eng 34:1095–1118

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Lawrence RW (1944) Mechanism of detonation in explosives. J Gen Appl Geophys 9:1–18

    Google Scholar 

  27. Hargather MJ, Settles GS (2007) Optical measurement and scaling of blasts from gram-range explosive charges. Shock Waves 17:215–223

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Tiwari V, Sutton MA, McNeill SR, Xu SW, Deng XM (2009) Application of 3D image correlation for full-field transient plate deformation measurements during blast loading. Int J Impact Eng 36:862–874

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Snyman IM (2010) Impulsive loading events and similarity scaling. Eng Struct 32:886–896

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Fox DM, Huang X, Jung D, Fourney WL, Leiste U, Lee JS (2011) The Response of small scale rigid targets to shallow buried explosive detonations. Int J Impact Eng 38:882–891

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Hopkinson B (1915) British Ordonance Board Minutes. 13565

  32. Cranz C, der Ballistik L (1926) Textbook of ballistics. Springer Verlag, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  33. Chabai AJ (1965) On Scaling dimensions of craters produced by buried explosives. J Geophys Res 70(20):5075–5098

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Neuberger A, Peles S, Rittel D (2007) Scaling the response of circular plates subjected to large and close-range spherical explosions Part I: Air-blast loading. Int J Impact Engineering 34:859–873

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Neuberger A, Peles S, Rittel D (2007) Scaling the response of circular plates subjected to large and close-range spherical explosions Part II: Buried charges. Int J Impact Engineering 34:874–882

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Neuberger A, Peles S, Rittel D (2009) Springback of circular clamped armor steel plates subjected to spherical air-blast loading. Int J Impact Engineering 36:53–60

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Bridgman PW (1949) Dimensional analysis. Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn

    Google Scholar 

  38. Jones N (1989) Structural impact. Cambridge University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  39. Gibbings JC (1982) Alogic of dimensional analysis. J Phys A Math Gen 15:1991–2002

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  40. Gibbings JC (1986) The systematic experiments. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  41. Genson K (2006) Vehicle shaping for mine blast damage reduction. MSc thesis, University of Maryland, USA

    Google Scholar 

  42. Benedetti R (2008) Mitigation of explosive blast effects on vehicle floorboard. MSc thesis, University of Maryland, USA

    Google Scholar 

  43. Fourney WL, Leiste HU, Hauck A, Jung D (2010) Distribution of Specific Impulse on Vehicles Subjected to IED’s Proceedings of SEM Fall Conference, IMPLAST 2010 held in Providence RI

Download references

Acknowledgments

The technical support of Dr. Bruce Lamattina and the financial assistance provided through the Army Research Office grant DAAD19-02-1-0343, ARO Contract # W911NF-06-1-0216 and ARO Contract # Z-849901 and the assistance provided by Dr. A. Rajendren and Dr. M. Zikry and the support provided through DURIP grant DAAD19-01-1-0391 are gratefully acknowledged. Finally, the financial support provided by the University of South Carolina College of Engineering and Computing in support of the DURIP award is acknowledged.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, 29208, USA

    Xing Zhao, Gary Shultis, Michael Sutton & Xiaomin Deng

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA

    Ryan Hurley, William Fourney & Uli Leiste

Authors
  1. Xing Zhao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Gary Shultis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Ryan Hurley
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Michael Sutton
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. William Fourney
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Uli Leiste
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Xiaomin Deng
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xing Zhao.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Appendix A-1

(DOCX 118 kb)

Appendix A-2

(DOCX 2214 kb)

Appendix A-3

(DOCX 1262 kb)

(MPG 13018 kb)

(MPG 14538 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Zhao, X., Shultis, G., Hurley, R. et al. Small Scale Models Subjected to Buried Blast Loading Part I: Floorboard Accelerations and Related Passenger Injury Metrics with Protective Hulls. Exp Mech 54, 539–555 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11340-013-9834-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11340-013-9834-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation