June 2021

A new article by Dr Jack Denny, Dr Alex Dickinson and Prof Genevieve Langdon, titled “Defining blast loading ‘zones of relevance’ for primary blast injury research: A consensus of injury criteria for idealised explosive scenarios” has been published in Medical Engineering Physics.

Work to define blast loading conditions for injury research has received relatively little attention, though with a continued experimental focus on primary blast injury (PBI) and idealised explosion assumptions, meaningful test outcomes and subsequent clinical applications, rely on appropriate simulated conditions. This paper critically evaluates and combines existing PBI criteria (grouped into those affecting the auditory system, pulmonary injuries and brain trauma) as a function of idealised blast wave parameters.

Highlights from the article include:

• There lacks consensus in the application and assumptions of PBI predictive criteria.
• Existing PBI criteria can define zones of clinically-relevant blast wave parameters.
• Application of PBI criteria could support clinical response to explosion incidents.
• Further work is needed to define blast exposure thresholds for mild blast traumatic brain injury (bTBI).

See the full article at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.medengphy.2021.05.014