Computational study of shock waves propagating through air-plastic-water interfaces
For researchers studying blast-induced mild traumatic brain injury, this provides a computational tool to gain insights not easily obtained experimentally, though the finding about thin interfaces is incremental.
The study developed computational methods to simulate blast wave propagation through air-plastic-water interfaces, motivated by traumatic brain injury research. The model showed that very thin plastic interfaces can be neglected, potentially simplifying higher-dimensional simulations.
The following study is motivated by experimental studies in traumatic brain injury (TBI). Recent research has demonstrated that low intensity non-impact blast wave exposure frequently leads to mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI); however, the mechanisms connecting the blast waves and the mTBI remain unclear. Collaborators at the Seattle VA Hospital are doing experiments to understand how blast waves can produce mTBI. In order to gain insight that is hard to obtain by experimental means, we have developed conservative finite volume methods for interface-shock wave interaction to simulate these experiments. A 1D model of their experimental setup has been implemented using Euler equations for compressible fluids. These equations are coupled with a Tammann equation of state (EOS) that allows us to model compressible gas along with almost incompressible fluids or elastic solids. A hybrid HLLC-exact Eulerian-Lagrangian Riemann solver for Tammann EOS with a jump in the parameters has been developed. The model has shown that if the plastic interface is very thin, it can be neglected. This result might be very helpful to model more complicated setups in higher dimensions.