What is a Blast? How to Design a Representative Pre-Clinical Model

Pre-clinical blast models vary widely in their design, using diverse subjects (animals and cells), mediums (air and water), and energy sources (wires, explosives, and gas) and levels (low to very high) to study and simulate blast exposure. While these models are often described as simulating “blast” exposure, variability exists in the resulting pressure time histories, including differences in peak pressure, duration, confinement, shock source, and the presence of a negative phase. These waveform characteristics significantly influence the overall exposure experienced during a blast, and potentially, injury outcomes. The objective of the paper is to define what physically constitutes a blast wave, distinguishing it from shock dominated pressure profiles that may result from non-explosive sources. Using this definition, existing pre-clinical blast models are evaluated with respect to their ability to reproduce blast waveforms. By analyzing these models, this paper identifies key limitations and provides guidance for designing representative pre-clinical exposure models that better reproduce blast wave characteristics. Improving blast waveform fidelity is important to improve the translation of pre-clinical experimental findings to clinical blast-induced injuries.