A US family have expressed their outrage after their elderly relative's body was blown up in an explosives test.

Doris Stauffer's body, 73, was donated to science after her death in 2013, with her family believing her remains would be used to study the effects of Alzheimer's Disease.

Instead her body was sold to the US Army for explosives testing, her son Jim told Reuters .

Doris Stauffer's body was donated to science. (Supplied)

"She was then supposedly strapped in a chair on some sort of apparatus, and a detonation took place underneath her to basically kind of get an idea of what the human body goes through when a vehicle is hit by an IED (improvised explosive device)," he said.

"There was actually wording on this paperwork about performing this stuff.

"Performing these medical tests that may involve explosions, and we said no. We checked the 'no' box on all that."

Mrs Stauffer's family are now suing Biological Resource Centre, the company that sold her body to the US Army.

The lawsuit also included the company owner Stephen Gore.

"If I can be a little small part of his personal financial destruction, I don't care," Mr Stauffer said.

Biological Research Centre has since closed its doors after the FBI raided its facility in 2014.

Gore was sentenced to probation for selling donated body parts for profit.