- Author
- Derksen, W. L. | Bates, W. J. | Monahan, T. I.
- Title
- Accuracy With Which Flash Burns May be Predicted From the Temperature History of a Skin Simulant. Research Report.
- Coporate
- New York Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn
- Report
- FinalReport, June 19, 1956, 10 p.
- Keywords
- flash burns | temperature | skin (human)
- Abstract
- The accuracy of predicting the severity of flash burns by determining the temperature of the absorptance corrected skin simulant was evaluated. The criteria employed were a set of temperature histories of the skin simulant which had resulted in burns in experiments at the University of Rochester. A series of gray cotton sateens was exposed to carbon-arc radiation with no separation and with 5mm spacing to the backing. Times of exposure varied from 0.5 to 20 seconds. The radiant absorptance of the cloths ranged from 0.14 to 0.95, transmittance fom 0.00 to 0.15. The average discrepancy between the radiant exposures for 2+ mild burns as predicted by the response of the pig and that of the skin simultant was 18 %; the maximum differences was 34%. Prediction of the burn severity was based on the temperature history of the skin simulant. there was no significant relationship between differences in radiant exposures and the time of exposure, radiant absorptance of the cloth, and radiant transmittance of cloth. The lack of exact agreement between the two methods is considered not to be significant in view of the large number of factors in the animal experiments which at that time were not known to contribute appreciably to burn phenomenology and which, therefore, were not documented in the animal experiment. Predicting burns on the basis of the temperature history of the skin simulant is simple in the many cases of cloths separated from the backing, where burns are caused by exothemic reactions.