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A Coupled Experiment-finite Element Modeling Methodology for Assessing High Strain Rate Mechanical Response of Soft Biomaterials
Published on: May 18, 2015
A high-frequency lung injury mechanism in blunt thoracic impact
Quentin Grimal1, Salah Naïli, Alexandre Watzky
1CNRS UMR 7052 B2OA, Faculté des Sciences et Technologie, Université Paris XII-Val de Marne, 61 Avenue du Général de Gaulle, 94010 Creteil, Cédex, France.
Abstract:
When a mechanical load is applied very rapidly to the thoracic wall, part of the internal damage is suspected to be due to a "high-frequency" injury mechanism, that is, a phenomenon in which waves are involved. This paper addresses a specific high-frequency mechanism for lung injury in which a stress wave is generated through rapid acceleration of the body wall. Displacement-related injuries, which are rather "low-frequency" phenomena, are not considered. The present work was done in the context of assessing behind armor blunt trauma (injury to thoracic organs occurring when a bullet is stopped by a body armor) through mathematical modeling. One aspect of the thorax response to high-speed blunt impact and an associated injury mechanism are investigated based on an idealized model of thorax and a set of computations presented in previous papers. The injury mechanism considered elucidates a possible mathematical relationship between the acceleration at the surface of the thoracic wall and the occurrence of lung injury.
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