Numerical Comparison of Muzzle Blast Loaded Structure

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Date

2022-03-15

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Publisher

Virginia Tech

Abstract

Modeling and simulation have played an essential role in understanding the effects of blast waves. However, a broad area of engineering problems, such as vehicle structures, buildings, bridges, or even the human body, can benefit by accurately predicting the response to blasts with little need for test or event data. This thesis reviews fundamental concepts of blast waves and explosives and discusses research in blast scaling. Blast scaling is a method that reduces the computational costs associated with modeling blasts by using empirical data and numerically calculating blast field parameters over time for various types and sizes of explosives. This computational efficiency is critical in studying blast waves' near and far-field effects. This thesis also reviews research to differentiate between free-air blasts and gun muzzle blasts and the progress of modeling the muzzle blast-structure interaction. The main focus of this thesis covers an investigation of different numerical and analytical solutions to a simple aerospace structure subjected to blast pressure. The thesis finally presents a tool that creates finite element loads utilizing muzzle blast scaling methods. This tool reduces modeling complexity and the need for multiple domains such as coupled computational fluid dynamics and finite element models by coupling blast scaling methods to a finite element model.

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Keywords

Finite element method, Muzzle Blast Scaling, Numerical Methods

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