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8315772 
Journal Article 
Abdominal injury of vehicle occupant in underbody blast events 
Wang, B; He, YY; Nie, BB; Xu, SC; Zhang, JH 
2021 
Jilin Daxue Xuebao (Gongxue Ban)
ISSN: 1671-5497 
51 
792-798 
Chinese 
To better understand the mechanisms and risks of abdominal injuries that result from underbody blast events, a finite element model including the occupant, the vehicle structure and the flow field of explosion was established. The dynamic responses of the thoracic and abdominal organs under the explosion of 6 kg TNT charge were studied, and the effects of seat impact, floor impact and seat belt loading on abdominal pressure were compared. Injury risks of the abdomen during blast loading were evaluated based on two biomechanical predictors: strain energy density of parenchymatous organ and the peak rate of abdominal vascular pressure change. During the process of impact, the occupant was pushed upward by the seat impact, which made the abdomen expanded. When the occupant was separated from the seat, the seat belt restricted the occupant from moving upward, which compressed the abdomen. The simulation results show that the seat impact has the largest effect on the abdominal pressure, followed by the seat belt loading. In the model constructed in this paper, the peak rate of abdominal vascular pressure change was 2.1 kPa/ms which showed that the risk of abdominal injury during blast is low. The present results can be served as a reference for vehicle protection system design. © 2021, Jilin University Press. All right reserved. 
Abdominal injury; Biomechanics; Finite element human body model; Underbody blast; Vehicle engineering