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Potential health issues arising from embedded metal fragment injuries are an operational health issue in the military medical community. Embedded fragment injuries can occur not only from standard-use munitions, but also from improvised explosive devices (IEDs). With few exceptions, the behavior of metal fragments, when embedded in the body, is not known. Herein, we propose a multitiered assessment protocol that can be used to both determine future health issues associated with newly developed munitions and, once the composition has been identified, determine potential toxicity of embedded fragments as a result of an IED event. The main premise of this assessment protocol is to view the embedded fragment as an implanted medical device and to utilize the guidelines already in place for testing the safety of such materials. Use of this structured, tiered approach will yield information critical for informed medical decisions., Published in Military Medicine, v174 n3 p265-269, 2010. Prepared in cooperation with Department of Veteran's Affairs, Washington, DC, and with Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, MD.

In modern machinery, a major cause of unscheduled downtime is the wear and eventual failure of load carrying components such as shafts, gears, and bearings. These wear and fatigue failures precipitate wear particles such as metal fragments, shavings, and chips. The mechanisms involved in the formation of wear particles, if understood, would lead to an optimization of the failure prediction method. A potentially important mechanism of wear is the application and release of a local high pressure on a working surface. This wear, known as cavitation erosion, is recognized as a powerfully destructive force in many high speed hydrodynamic systems. Cavitation is one of the major problems confronting designers and users of modern high speed hydrodynamic systems such as pumps, marine propellers, hydraulic turbines, valves and control devices, hydrofoils, sonar domes, other acoustic signal devices, bearings, and diesel engine wet-cylinder liners.