Thuy-Tien N. Nguyen

Prolonged but not short duration blast waves elicit acute inflammation in a rodent model of primary blast limb trauma

BACKGROUND Blast injuries from conventional and improvised explosive devices account for 75% of injuries from current conflicts; over 70% of injuries involve the limbs. Variable duration and magnitude of blast wave loading occurs in real-life explosions and is hypothesised to cause different injuries. While a number of in vivo models report the inflammatory response to blast injuries, the extent of this response has not been investigated with respect to the duration of the primary blast wave. The relevance is that explosions in open air are of short duration compared to those in confined spaces. METHODS Hindlimbs of adult Sprauge-Dawley rats were subjected to focal isolated primary blast waves of varying overpressure (1.8-3.65kPa) and duration (3.0-11.5ms), utilising a shock tube and purpose-built experimental rig. Rats were monitored during and after the blast. At 6 and 24h after exposure, blood, lungs, liver and muscle tissues were collected and prepared for histology and flow cytometry. RESULTS At 6h, increases in circulating neutrophils and CD43Lo/His48Hi monocytes were observed in rats subjected to longer-duration blast waves. This was accompanied by increases in circulating pro-inflammatory chemo/cytokines KC and IL-6. No changes were observed with shorter-duration blast waves irrespective of overpressure. In all cases, no histological damage was observed in muscle, lung or liver. By 24h post-blast, all inflammatory parameters had normalised. CONCLUSIONS We report the development of a rodent model of primary blast limb trauma that is the first to highlight an important role played by blast wave duration and magnitude in initiating acute inflammatory response following limb injury in the absence of limb fracture or penetrating trauma. The combined biological and mechanical method developed can be used to further understand the complex effects of blast waves in a range of different tissues and organs in vivo.

The propagation of blast pulses through dampened granular media

The propagation of stress through granular and dampened granular material has been reported previously, the addition of significant amounts of liquid in granular beds causes the mechanism of transmission of blast from one of percolation through the bed pores to one of stress transmission through the granules of the bed. It has been shown, however, that limited amounts liquid can retard propagation within blast-loaded beds by approximately an order of magnitude. This paper presents data on percolation through dampened granular beds using a shock tube as the pressure driver. The effect of particle shape and size was investigated using angular grains of quartz sand as well as smooth glass microspheres. The effect of addition of small amounts of liquids is presented.

Microstructural Consequences of Blast Lung Injury Characterized with Digital Volume Correlation

This study focuses on microstructural changes that occur within the mammalian lung when subject to blast and how these changes influence strain distributions within the tissue. Shock tube experiments were performed to generate the blast injured specimens (cadaveric Sprague-Dawley rats). Blast overpressures of 100 kPa and 180 kPa were studied. Synchrotron tomography imaging was used to capture volumetric image data of lungs. Specimens were ventilated using a custom-built system to study multiple inflation pressures during each tomography scan. This data enabled the first digital volume correlation (DVC) measurements in lung tissue to be performed. Quantitative analysis was performed to describe the damaged architecture of the lung. No clear changes in the microstructure of the tissue morphology were observed due to controlled low to moderate level blast exposure. However, significant focal sites of injury were observed using DVC, which allowed detection of bias and concentration in the patterns of strain level. Morphological analysis corroborated the findings, illustrating that the focal damage caused by a blast can give rise to diffuse influence across the tissue. It is important to characterise the non-instantly fatal doses of blast, given the transient nature of blast lung in the clinical setting. This research has highlighted the need for better understanding of focal injury and its zone of influence (alveolar inter-dependency and neighbouring tissue burden as a result of focal injury). Digital volume correlation techniques show great promise as a tool to advance this endeavour, providing a new perspective on lung mechanics post-blast.

Platform development for primary blast injury studies

Explosion-related injuries are currently the most commonly occurring wounds in modern conflicts. They are observed in both military and civilian theatres, with complex injury pathophysiologies. Primary blast injuries are the most frequently encountered critical injuries experienced by victims close to the explosion. They are caused by large and rapid pressure changes of the blast waves which produce a wide range of loading patterns resulting in varied injuries. Well-characterised experimental loading devices which can reproduce the real mechanical characteristics of blast loadings on biological specimens in in vivo, ex vivo, and in vitro models are essential in determining the injury mechanisms. This paper discusses the performance and application of platforms, including shock tubes, mechanical testing machines, drop-weight rigs, and split-Hopkinson pressure bar, with regards to the replication of primary blast.

Challenges in the characterization of failure and resilience of biological materials

Understanding the strain-rate behavior of natural and synthetic soft biological materials poses great challenges for materials research due their heterogeneous composition and structural complexity. Expanding fundamental knowledge about how biomaterials function under different loading regimes is of considerable interest in both fundamental and applied research. A summary of typical challenges associated with the characterization of biological materials in standard materials testing systems is presented. In addition, we describe how platforms addressed some of these challenges in their optimization for measurement of the material responses of soft biological materials.

Fragment penetrating injury to long bones

High energy trauma events as seen in explosions and ballistic impact cause severe damage to the human body. The injuries are generally complex and the precise mechanism is not fully understood. Secondary blast injuries, effectively ballistic traumas, to the extremities are commonly reported, especially to the tibia. The aim of this study is to quantify the effect of parameters such as projectile mass, velocity, and impact location on the injury threshold of the leg. The bone was set in biofidelic gelatin tissue simulant; a 32-mm-bore gas gun was used to launch a carbon-steel projectile of 0.78 ± 0.01 g in mass at velocity 100 to 360 m/s. Penetration depth and impact velocity were recorded. The loading on the bone, in the standing posture was reproduced by pre-compressing the sample. Preliminary results showed that the impact velocity of 326 ± 5 m/s is approximately the threshold for the through-bone penetration of the porcine femur.

Experimental platforms to study blast injury

Injuries sustained due to attacks from explosive weapons are multiple in number, complex in nature, and not well characterised. Blast may cause damage to the human body by the direct effect of overpressure, penetration by highly energised fragments, and blunt trauma by violent displacements of the body. The ability to reproduce the injuries of such insults in a well-controlled fashion is essential in order to understand fully the unique mechanism by which they occur, and design better treatment and protection strategies to alleviate the resulting poor long-term outcomes. This paper reports a range of experimental platforms that have been developed for different blast injury models, their working mechanism, and main applications. These platforms include the shock tube, split-Hopkinson bars, the gas gun, drop towers and bespoke underbody blast simulators.

An investigation of a reticulated foam - perforated steel sheet combination as a blast mitigation structure

Explosions are one of the main causes of injuries during battles and conflicts, with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) becoming increasingly common. Blast waves produced from such explosions can inflict very complex injuries on human and serious damage to structures. Here, the interaction between blast waves and sandwich structures of reticulated foam and perforated sheets is studied using a shock tube. The level of mitigation for primary blast injuries of these structures are discussed in terms of pulse shape, pressure magnitude and impulse. Schlieren photography and other high-speed imaging were used to capture the form of the blast wave. The results show up to 95% mitigation in both pressure and impulse with the structures studied. The behaviors of these mitigating sandwich panels under two loadings, Mach 2.0 and Mach 2.6, are also discussed.