Challenges in Blast Protection Research
With the
arrival of industrial warfare, there has been a stable increase in
explosion-related damages. Nowadays, explosives, mainly improvised explosive
devices (IEDs), account for approximately 80 % of war injuries and death. Explosives produce systemic polytrauma
across multiple body systems by simultaneous mechanisms.
Using
explosives globally in the terror campaign has re-kindled international
interest in blast research. The need to protect innocent civilians and
peacemakers from such acts requires detailed knowledge of blast effective from
explosives in difficult scenarios – as well as ways for preventing or mitigating damage.
Great
developments have been made with mathematical models and computational methods
to stimulate complex blast scenarios. Different tools available depend on
solving the Euler conservation equations for mass, energy, and momentum and
differ only in the description and the numerical approach to computation. The
effective methods of blast propagation using 3D numerical meshes and using new CFD technologies, as well as the accessibility to better computer processing,
have allowed investigating the complex interaction of blast and shock waves.
Despite
the increased sophistication of the computation tools, some major challenges
still exist in this field. It is thus obvious that researchers will have an
acute interest in blast projection research, as numerous aspects in this domain
need basic research to enhance the fundamental knowledge to sufficient levels.
Though the essential complexity of real-world events in these spheres also
needs an inclusive research method for implementing solutions and consequently,
it has become the trend to have research
associations across the spectrum of academic and industrial institutions.
Most of
the IED cases concern explosive charged in very near proximity to the target
and small-scale blast test are performed at close stand-off distances. The anomalies
of blast features as a task of geometry at short stand-off have been addressed
in previous researches. Important
differences in the explosion yield are initiated for cylindrical charges
related to spherical charges, at even quite large scaled
distances.
It has noteworthy effects in protection research where it is a standard
incidence to anticipate non-spherical charges as the risk and shorter
application standoff distances.
There is
an increased need for an active system. It is lucrative form the notion that it
can be deployed on-demand and has positive influences for armored vehicles in
terms of spatial or mass requirements. Irrespective of the apparent difficulties in the application
of active blast mitigation systems in practice, numerous ideas have been
explored. Additionally, active
mitigation systems have lately been announced in armored vehicle systems.
