A MODEL OF BLAST OVERPRESSURE INJURY TO THE LUNG

Despite decades of animal experiments, data on blast injury to the lun g cover only a limited number of circumstances and are in a fragmented form. This paper develops a mathematical model of the chest wall dyna mics and the subsequent generation of strong pressure waves within the lung, which have been hypothesized as the mediator of injury. The mod el has been compared to an extensive database of observed pathologies from animal tests. The incidence of injury and lethality is found to f ollow a log-normal correlation with the computed total energy in these waves and, when the energy is normalized by the lung volume, the leth ality correlation applies to all large animal species. Small animals a lso correlate with the normalized energy, but at a different value, an d it is speculated that structural differences, other than lung volume , may be involved. This relatively simple model allows the potential f or blast injury to the lung to be determined from measured or computed pressure traces without additional animal testing. Improved occupatio nal exposure criteria should follow from this methodology.