Pratt & Miller Engineering & Fabrication, LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: A15-075

Description

Tibia and lower leg injuries are a major concern in underbody blast events which have been identified as one of the most common causes of war time lower limb injuries. Approximately one third of all soldiers injured in underbody blast events sustain foot/ankle fractures or tibia/fibula fractures. Worse yet, many of these injuries are severe enough that they lead to amputation or permanent disabilities. This problem is further exacerbated by the rigid floors used in most fielded military vehicles as they allow blast energy to be transmitted directly into the vehicle occupants. Significant progress has been made to combat this threat in recent years. Isolated floor systems have shown promise in attenuating underbody blast energy and protecting occupants from injuries, particularly the lower extremities. Applying these isolated floor systems can be challenging because they require additional mechanism and travel space. This creates additional complications in already tightly packaged fielded vehicles due to both the space required for energy absorbing (EA) travel and the additional weight of the system. Pratt & Miller Engineering (PME) proposes CIMRIF (pronounced Sim Riff), the Compact, Injury Mitigating, Recoverable, Isolated Floor. CIMRIF is an isolated floor system that minimizes the vehicle footprint through its range of functionality and focuses on blast threats in the 2 to 8 meters per second range while utilizing passive systems to reliably accomplish this task.