Conventional bombs generate a blast wave that spreads from the source.
A blast wave consists of a shock wave of high pressure followed by a blast wind.
Five mechanisms of injury: from blast wave, from projectiles, from victim being thrust into objects, from heat and from explosive material’s toxicity.
Damage produced by blast waves decrease exponentially with distance from the source of the blast.
With indoor explosions standing waves and increased differences in pressure occur due to additive effects of reflections or reverberations from walls and rigid objects.
When outward energy dissipates, wind reversal occurs towards the blast and under pressurization occurs.
Pressure effects damage organs at air fluid interfaces and wind propels fragments and people with penetrating and blunt injuries.
Traumatic brain injury by blast can be related to direct damage by passage of the blast wave through the skull and/or causing acceleration and/or rotation of the head, and can cause indirect damage when kinetic energy from a blast wave is transf2242ed through large blood vessels in the abdomen and chest to the central nervous system.