Modeling Underwater Explosion (UNDEX) Shock Effects for Vulnerability Assessment in Early Stage Ship Design

This thesis describes and assesses a simplified tool for modeling underwater explosion shock effects during early naval ship concept design. A simplified fluid model using Taylor flat-plate theory is incorporated directly into the OpenFSI module code in Nastran and used to interface with the structural solver in Nastran to simulate a far-field shockwave impacting the hull. The kick-off velocities and the shock spectra captured in this computationally efficient module is compared to results from a high-fidelity CASE (Cavitating Acoustic Spectral Element) fluid model implemented with the ABAQUS/Nastran structural solver to validate the simplified framework and assess the sufficiency of this very simple but, fast approach for early stage ship design.