Posters

A computational fluid-structure interaction model of a high explosive detonation to assess human eye components injury

Poster Details

First Author: A.Shojaei Baghini IRAN

Co Author(s):    A. Karimi   R. Razaghi   M. Navidbakhsh              

Abstract Details

Purpose:

Although many efforts have been devoted to measure the injury in the globe, there is still a lack of knowledge on the injury mechanism due to Primary Blast Wave (PBW). This study was aimed to determine the stresses and deformations of the human eye components, including cornea, aqueous, iris, ciliary body, lens, vitreous, retina, sclera, optic nerve, and muscles, attributable to Primary Blast Wave (PBW) induced by trinitrotoluene (TNT) explosion at different victim distances via a Lagrangian-Eulerian computational coupling model.

Setting:

In spite the fact that a very small area of the frontal body surface of the human is comprised by the eye, ocular injuries from explosions have been dramatically increased in the recent wars.

Methods:

An idealized finite element model of the human eye was established using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of a normal human eye. The solid components of the eye were modeled as Lagrangian mesh, while an explosive TNT, air domain, and aqueous were modelled using Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) mesh. Nonlinear dynamic finite element simulations were accomplished using the explicit finite element model, namely LS-DYNA code. In order to simulate the blast wave generation, propagation, and interaction with the eye, the ALE formulation with Jones-Wilkins-Lee (JWL) equation defining the explosive material were used.

Results:

The results revealed a pick stress of 135.70 and 169.40 kPa caused by blast wave on the cornea for the victim distances of 0.25 and 0.5 m, respectively. The highest von Mises stresses were observed on the sclera (267.3 kPa), whereas the lowest one was seen on the vitreous body (0.002 kPa) for the victim distance of 0.25 m. The results also showed a relatively high resultant displacement for the optic nerve and macula as well as a high variation for the radius of curvature for the cornea and lens, which can bring about both macular holes, optic nerve damage, and consequently vision loss.

Conclusions:

These results may have implications not only for understanding the value of stresses and strains on the eye components but also giving an insight into the mechanism of PBW induced ocular injuries.

Financial Disclosure:

NONE