In the 1950s explosives began to be used to generate ultrahigh pressures in condensed substances in order to modify their properties and structure. Notwithstanding the short duration of an explosion, its energy proved to be high enough to perform physical-chemical transformations of substances, and the new method gained wide industrial applications. It has both advan tages and drawbacks in comparison with the traditional method of static compression. The latter method, notorious for its cumbersome and expensive machin ery, allows one to maintain high pressure as long as one pleases and to regu late the temperature of the sample arbitrarily. But, the pressure available is rather limited and for any increase of this limit one has to pay by the progres sive shrinking of the working volume of a press. The dynamic method has the advantages of low cost and practically no restrictions of magnitude of pressure and the size of a processed sample, but the temperature in a compressed body is no longer controlled by an experi mentor. Rather, it is firmly dictated by the level of loading, according to the equation of state. Hence, it is difficult to recover metastable products and impossible to prepare solids with a low concentration of defects as the dura tion of explosion is too short for their elimination.

Explosion Blast Response of Composites contains key information on the effects of explosions, shock waves, and detonation products (e.g. fragments, shrapnel) on the deformation and damage to composites. The book considers the blast response of laminates and sandwich composites, along with blast mitigation of composites (including coating systems and energy absorbing materials). Broken down under the following key themes: Introduction to explosive blast response of composites, Air explosion blast response of composites, Underwater explosion blast response of composites, and High strain rate and dynamic properties of composites, the book deals with an important and contemporary topic due to the extensive use of composites in applications where explosive blasts are an ever-present threat, such as military aircraft, armoured vehicles, naval ships and submarines, body armour, and other defense applications. In addition, the growing use of IEDs and other types of bombs used by terrorists to attack civilian and military targets highlights the need for this book. Many terrorist attacks occur in subways, trains, buses, aircraft, buildings, and other civil infrastructure made of composite materials. Designers, engineers and terrorist experts need the essential information to protect civilians, military personnel, and assets from explosive blasts. - Focuses on key aspects, including both modeling, analysis, and experimental work - Written by leading international experts from academia, defense agencies, and other organizations - Timely book due to the extensive use of composites in areas where explosive blasts are an ever-present threat in military applications

This book compiles a variety of experimental data on blast waves. The book begins with an introductory chapter and proceeds to the topic of blast wave phenomenology, with a discussion on Rankine-Hugoniot equations and the Friedlander equation, used to describe the pressure-time history of a blast wave. Additional topics include arrival time measurement, the initiation of detonation by exploding wires, a discussion of TNT equivalency, and small scale experiments. Gaseous and high explosive detonations are covered as well. The topics and experiments covered were chosen based on the comparison of used scale sizes, from small to large. Each characteristic parameter of blast waves is analyzed and expressed versus scaled distance in terms of energy and mass. Finally, the appendix compiles a number of polynomial laws that will prove indispensable for engineers and researchers.

This reference is a comprehensive work in the field of neurotrauma and critical care. It incorporates the fields of head injury, spinal injury and basic neurotrauma research into one source. The major emphasis is on the treatment of patients with head and spinal cord injury, including the management of all other problems that bear upon the care of these patients.

With the contribution from more than one hundred CNS neurotrauma experts, this book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account on the latest developments in the area of neurotrauma including biomarker studies, experimental models, diagnostic methods, and neurotherapeutic intervention strategies in brain injury research. It discusses neurotrauma mechanisms, biomarker discovery, and neurocognitive and neurobehavioral deficits. Also included are medical interventions and recent neurotherapeutics used in the area of brain injury that have been translated to the area of rehabilitation research. In addition, a section is devoted to models of milder CNS injury, including sports injuries.

In November 1999, GSA and the U.S. Department of State convened a symposium to discuss the apparently conflicting objectives of security from terrorist attack and the design of public buildings in an open society. The symposium sponsors rejected the notion of rigid, prescriptive design approaches. The symposium concluded with a challenge to the design and security professions to craft aesthetically appealing architectural solutions that achieve balanced, performance-based approaches to both openness and security. In response to a request from the Office of the Chief Architect of the Public Buildings Service, the National Research Council (NRC) assembled a panel of independent experts, the Committee to Review the Security Design Criteria of the Interagency Security Committee. This committee was tasked to evaluate the ISC Security Design Criteria to determine whether particular provisions might be too prescriptive to allow a design professional "reasonable flexibility" in achieving desired security and physical protection objectives.

Underground facilities are used extensively by many nations to conceal and protect strategic military functions and weapons' stockpiles. Because of their depth and hardened status, however, many of these strategic hard and deeply buried targets could only be put at risk by conventional or nuclear earth penetrating weapons (EPW). Recently, an engineering feasibility study, the robust nuclear earth penetrator program, was started by DOE and DOD to determine if a more effective EPW could be designed using major components of existing nuclear weapons. This activity has created some controversy about, among other things, the level of collateral damage that would ensue if such a weapon were used. To help clarify this issue, the Congress, in P.L. 107-314, directed the Secretary of Defense to request from the NRC a study of the anticipated health and environmental effects of nuclear earth-penetrators and other weapons and the effect of both conventional and nuclear weapons against the storage of biological and chemical weapons. This report provides the results of those analyses. Based on detailed numerical calculations, the report presents a series of findings comparing the effectiveness and expected collateral damage of nuclear EPW and surface nuclear weapons under a variety of conditions.