The Relationship Between Selected Blast-wave Parameters and the Response of Mammals Exposed to Air Blast

Résumé du livre

Ear injury was not systematically studied; however, data gleaned from lethality and lung-injury experiments indicated that: eardrum response to blast pressures is subject to wide variation; a duration effect was observed in sheep, with 38-per cent rupture recorded at 21.4 psi for durations near 100 msec versus no eardrum rupture at 32.4 psi when the durations were about 5 msec; and the severity of ear damage increased with the intensity of the blast. From the presented data, tentative estimations of man's response to "fast"--Rising pressures of 3-msec duration were compiled. Pressures for threshold and severe lung-hemorrhage levels were 30 to 40 and above 80 psi, respectively. The threshold for lethality was 100 to 120 psi with an LD-50 range of 130 to 180 psi. Time-honored estimates for human eardrum rupture values of 5 and 15 psi, respectively, for threshold and 50-per cent could not be revised at this time.