Understanding the mechanisms of traumatic ocular injury is helpful to make accurate diagnoses before the symptoms emerge and to develop specific eye protection. The comprehension of the dynamics of primary blast injury mechanisms is a challenging issue. The question is whether the pressure wave propagation and reflection alone could cause ocular damage. To date, there are dissenting opinions and no conclusive evidence thereupon. A previous numerical investigation of blast trauma highlighted the dynamic effect of pressure propagation and its amplification by the geometry of the bony orbit, inducing a resonance cavity effect and a standing wave hazardous for eye tissues. The objective of the current work is to find experimental evidence of the numerically identified phenomenon. Therefore, tests aimed at evaluating the response of porcine eyes to blast overpressure generated by firecrackers explosion were performed. The orbital cavity effect was considered mounting the enucleated eyes inside a dummy orbit. The experimental measurements obtained during the explosion tests presented in this paper corroborate the numerical evidence of a high-frequency pressure amplification, enhancing the loading on the ocular tissues, attributable to the orbital bony walls surrounding the eye. © 2017 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Firecracker eye exposure: experimental study and simulation

CLEMENTE, Chiara;ESPOSITO, Luca;SPERANZA, DOMENICO;BONORA, Nicola
2017-01-01

Abstract

Understanding the mechanisms of traumatic ocular injury is helpful to make accurate diagnoses before the symptoms emerge and to develop specific eye protection. The comprehension of the dynamics of primary blast injury mechanisms is a challenging issue. The question is whether the pressure wave propagation and reflection alone could cause ocular damage. To date, there are dissenting opinions and no conclusive evidence thereupon. A previous numerical investigation of blast trauma highlighted the dynamic effect of pressure propagation and its amplification by the geometry of the bony orbit, inducing a resonance cavity effect and a standing wave hazardous for eye tissues. The objective of the current work is to find experimental evidence of the numerically identified phenomenon. Therefore, tests aimed at evaluating the response of porcine eyes to blast overpressure generated by firecrackers explosion were performed. The orbital cavity effect was considered mounting the enucleated eyes inside a dummy orbit. The experimental measurements obtained during the explosion tests presented in this paper corroborate the numerical evidence of a high-frequency pressure amplification, enhancing the loading on the ocular tissues, attributable to the orbital bony walls surrounding the eye. © 2017 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11580/63042
 Attenzione

Attenzione! I dati visualizzati non sono stati sottoposti a validazione da parte dell'ateneo

Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 9
social impact