There is a major knowledge gap limiting the effectiveness of human digital twins for use in armor design and testing. In order to accurately build a digital twin of the Warfighter requires in depth understanding of how soft biological tissues respond to a variety of loading conditions. Due to the viscous nature of soft biological tissue, the rate of loading has a large effect on the material properties. This means material properties of tissue measured under quasi-static conditions will be not be applicable in fast dynamic conditions. The material properties for different degrees and types of dynamic conditions may also affect material properties and, as such, a single dynamic loading condition may not be fully covered by a single constitutive relationship. While material properties have been measured for many soft tissues, most of the data is for static, quasi-static, or low strain rate loadings. There is a lack of data for higher strain-rate loading, the exact loading conditions needed to simulate the blast and impact injuries that PPE is designed to protect against. To achieve the goal of a digital twin of the Warfighter addressing PPE performance, we need to determine how viscous biological tissues respond to higher strain-rate loading.

The goal of this effort is to develop the techniques necessary to determine and quantify, both experimentally and computationally, how biological tissues behave under high strain-rate loading conditions such as blast and impact.

Additional Benefits

Awardees who reside more than 50 miles from their host laboratory and remain on tenure for at least six months are eligible for paid relocation to within the vicinity of their host laboratory.

A group health insurance program is available to awardees and their qualifying dependents in the United States.