Analysis of the Stuhmiller blast injury model

The Stuhmiller model for blast wave injury has been studied. Although it has not been documented well in literature, we were able to program the model in Matlab and study some of its properties. It turned out that the Stuhmiller and Axelsson models had been calibrated to more or less the same data. As a result it was possible to derive a relationship between their respective injury parameters. Further, it was noted that two new injury models could easily be derived, using either the calculated chest wall velocity from Stuhmiller or calculating the irreversible work using the Axelsson chest wall velocities. In particular the Modified Stuhmiller model gave better agreement than any other model when applied to the Johnson data. Finally, all four injury models were compared with the Bowen curves. Here the original Axelsson model and the Modified Stuhmiller model were in best agreement, which could indicate that chest wall velocity is a better injury parameter than the irreversible work.