In an effort to develop safer protective systems, scientists are scanning the coffins of soldiers coming home from the Middle East.
The Office of Naval Research’s expeditionary maneuver warfare and combating terrorism department is leading the effort to pair the computer x-ray scans with forensic data gathered from the blasts to help determine the exact causes of death or injury. Scientists are correlating the bodily damage to the threats and analyzing the information to determine what can be done to the vehicles and the placement of armor to prevent future harm.
Scientists also are able to construct better computer models of the human body that can be used when designing future combat vehicles and armor.
“We’re building very realistic models of the head, cervical spine, lumbar spine, thorax and internal organs that are physics-based,” said Jim Laswell, department head.
The forensics-based models will help to define standards for the vehicle and armor manufacturing industry, which currently lacks them, he told a science and technology conference sponsored by ONR and NDIA.
Such models also will help ONR to speed up the research processes to promote new materials and new methods of designing vehicles.
“Based on this epidemiology of the data, we can conduct testing to do development much more quickly,” said Laswell.