Download or read book The Overpressure-duration Relationship and Lethality in Small Animals written by Donald R. Richmond and published by . This book was released on 1962 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A total of 993 mice, rats, guinea pigs and rabbits were exposed to sharp-rising overpressures of various short durations. They were mounted on a concrete pad above which high-explosive charges, ranging in weight from 0.50 oz to 64 lbs, were detonated. Pressure-time measurements were obtained with pencil-type and shock-tube piezo-electric gauges on the pad directly beneath the charges. The duration of the blast waves ranged from 0.40 msec to 6.8 msec. The LD-50 pressures were calculated for each species at the different pulse durations. In general, the pressures required to produce 50-percent lethality rose at the shorter durations. Combining the results of this study with those from previous shock-tube investigations made it possible to define the tolerance of four small-animal species to sharply rising overpressures as a function of pulse duration.