Development of a survivability evaluation procedure for bullet penetration into human body

Abstract

This paper develops survivability evaluation procedure (KUSAR ST-33 program) for bullet penetration into human body based on the AIS (abbreviated injury scale) and the NISS (new injury severity score). Depending on the energy and geometrical configuration of bullet, the shape of temporary wound cavity inside human body is different and this influences the extent of injury. First, some bullet experiments are carried out to extract representative shapes of temporary cavities according to bullet types, and three-dimensional matrix representing human anatomical structure is constructed from scanned CT images of upper body. By mapping the extracted cavity shapes to the 3D matrix for anatomical structure, volume of damaged tissues of some internal organs including blood vessels and bones are calculated. Finally, the AIS and the NISS scores depending on the trajectories of bullets and energy levels are computed with some random variation effects. Bullet trajectories and consequent damaged anatomical structure are visualized.