DEWEY McMILLIN & ASSOCIATES LTD

EBlast ^™

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
EBlast describes the damage and injury caused by blast waves. It provides damage and injury distances for a wide variety of explosive devices and environments, describes the damage and injury and provides source references. It is a 32-bit program which runs under Windows 95/98/NT4 with modest hardware requirements. The user interface is easily understood: useful results can be obtained immediately, even by non-experts. Only minimum amounts of information need be supplied and they need not be known accurately. The information can be modified easily if and when better information is obtained. SI (metric) or British units can be used. A GIS interface is available, so that in addition to damage and injury distances, areas of damage and injury can be obtained and overlaid on maps. The user can display a map of the emergency site, position the explosive device graphically and see immediately what areas need to be evacuated. Various GIS formats are supported.

DEVICE OPTIONS
Vehicle bombs: Choose one of six generic vehicle sizes, e.g., 'Small box van', or select from an extensive list of vehicles by year, make and model. The amount of explosive that will be assumed in the vehicle will depend on the carrying capacity of the selected vehicle, taken from the vehicle list. The default amounts of explosive assigned to the generic vehicles are those assigned by the US Dept of the Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). The user can change the amount of explosive in all cases.
Package bombs: Choose one of five generic package sizes, e.g., 'Backpack or suitcase', or specify the package size as follows: length, width and height (rectangular package), length and diameter (cylindrical tube) or diameter (spherical ball), or specify a mass (package weight) or volume (cubic feet, cubic metres or gallons).
Pipe bombs: Choose one of four generic pipe bomb sizes (the size of a 'rolled magazine', for example) or specify the pipe bomb size (length and diameter). The material used can be selected from a list: plastic, cast iron, steel, copper, aluminum, cardboard or rolled paper, or, 'I don't know', in which case a default metal is assigned.
Munitions: Select from an extensive list of military munitions, e.g., 'Mortar shells, Soviet 120mm', and specify their quantity (the number).
Various: Select from an extensive list of explosive materials, e.g., 'Bare charge, Composition B', and specify its quantity (the charge mass in kilograms or lbs).

ENVIRONMENT OPTIONS
Open flat ground: Choose this option if the device is relatively far from reflecting structures, in large parking lot, for example.
Height of nearby buildings: Choose 'one-story' or 'greater than one-story' by clicking the appropriate graphical image displayed to illustrate these options.
Location of nearby buildings: Choose from 4 different options by clicking an appropriate graphical image: 'Intersection', 'Blind alley', etc.
Each environment effects differently the damage and injury distances displayed, each 'enhancing' the blast compared to open flat ground, that is, increasing the distances at which specific types of damage and injury will occur. The enhancement factors are obtained from off-line 3-D numerical simulations.

DISPLAY OPTIONS
Damage and injury distances are displayed using a bar chart. The bars are labeled by blast effect (listed below) and sorted by increasing distance. Clicking on a bar provides Help information which describes the nature of the effect (damage or injury) and provides references to source literature, for immediate use or in training programs. An additional display option is available for users with GIS (Geographical Information System) requirements. Miscellaneous display options include changing colours (making the 'lung damage' limit appear as a red line, for example) and opening a user-editable text display (text outlining local emergency procedures, responsibilities, etc.)
GIS support:  An embedded ActvieX control allows users to access maps of the emergency site and their associated databases (resources, hazards, etc.) The explosive device can be overlaid on the map and areas of damage and injury displayed, and familiar GIS tools accessed, zooming, for example.The current GIS interface displays a variety of vector map files (MapInfo MIF, ESRI Shape, MicroStation DGN, AutoCAD DXF/DWG and VPF (DCW/DNC)); image map files (TIFF, Bitmap, JPG, BSB, TGA, PCX, ADRG and others) and offers many GIS functions, including direct query and real-time animation.

FILE OPTIONS
All displays can be printed. Defined explosions and current display conditions can be saved to disk for later recall, so that, for example, an inventory of possible emergencies can created for later use. If the user exits the program without saving, then the current explosion is automatically saved as the 'Last explosion', to avoid repetitive data entry on program restart during a real emergency.

SPECIAL OPTIONS
A 'Lite' version of EBlast, EBlast LT, is available, without the GIS option, which can be run a from floppy disk (without the formal installation to hard disk, program component registrations, etc.) The EBlast database can be accessed from the AirBlast expert system, under special licence.

BLAST EFFECTS
The current database defines damage and injury distances for the following blast effects (listed roughly in increasing order of distance):100% Lethality, near 100% lethality, 50% lethality, threshold lethality, threshold building demolition, threshold lung damage, eardrum rupture, threshold major building damage, eardrum rupture threshold, ATF Lethal Airblast range, 2 psi level, threshold minor building damage, 1 psi level, tempered glass damage, annealed glass damage, threshold eardrum damage, ATF evacuation distance. These effects are based on experience and are sensitive to both blast pressure and impulse. The list of effects can be customized, that is, other effects can added or any of those listed here, removed.

Note: DM&A will adjust options to user's needs (e.g., Explosive device lists, Blast effects, GIS interface, ....)