Simulation of Suicide Bombing: Using Computers to Save Lives

This book introduces BlastSim - a physics-based simulation platform to model and simulate suicide bombing events. The BlastSim software is designed to test, analyze, and validate the results of different explosive and injury model combinations under various conditions with different sets of parameters, such as explosive and crowd formation characteristics, blockage and human shielding effects, fragmentation and shrapnel, and the bomber's position in 2- and 3-dimensional environments. The suicide bombing event can also be re-created for forensic analysis. The number of fatalities and injured after a suicide bombing event can be predicted using this software with 91% accuracy. The assessment of an explosion's effect on a crowd can lead to better management of disasters, triage of patients, locating blast victims under the debris, development of protective gear, and safe distance recommendations to reduce casualties.