Essay On Blast Waves

Explosive blast waves and the unseen damage to the human brain. Before the war in Iraq and Afghanistan traumatic brain injuries, mostly occurred due to vehicular accidents or sport injuries, since “2000-2011 229,106 U.S. service members suffered a TBI incident” (Magnuson, Leonessa, and Ling 570). To understand how the explosive blast waves affect the human brain you need to understand how explosives cause a change in atmospheric pressure. As well as knowing what can happen to the brain when it receives a hit from a blast wave. To talk about the cause and effect of this issue you need to understand explosives. Explosives when detonated cause a blast wave. This blast wave goes out from the explosives and causes a positive pressure wave once it pasts it then has a void to fill which is called negative pressure. To visualize this, picture the beach and the waves coming in to shore the crashing of the wave hitting the shore and going up the beach would be the positive pressure. Now the water as to go back and fill the gap it just created that would be the negative pressure. This effect isn’t serious when experienced in small doses, but if you think back the beach …show more content…
The brain is one that is more susceptible to injury than others. “Blast waves can cause concussions or mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) without a direct blow to the head” (CDC 5). What happens in a matter of seconds when the blast wave moves though the body it, slams your brain into the side of your skull while causing whiplash when the negative pressure wave comes back though your body. Some of the issues that can arise after being exposed to a blast are “headache, confusion, amnesia, difficulty concentrating, short-term memory loss, mood alteration, sleep disturbance, vertigo and anxiety. Generally, these symptoms occur immediately after injury and resolve after a few hours or days” (Magnuson, Leonessa, and Ling