Modelling and the FEM Analysis of the Effects of the Blast Wave on the Side of a Vehicle According to the AEP-55 Vol. 3 Methodology

Abstract

The article presents the modelling and numerical simulations of the effects of the blast wave on the model of a light wheeled armoured vehicle. The main aim of conducted tests was to assess the effectiveness of the used additional external protective structures mounted to the side of the vehicle’s body. Two identical vehicles constituted the subject matter of the analyses—a referential body with mass equivalents of energy-absorbing panels made of steel and a principal body with built-up energy-absorbing panels. The scope of numerical analyses included checking the energy-absorbing capabilities of energy-absorbing panels mounted on the vehicle’s body in the case of a side explosion of an explosive with the mass of 15 kg. This location of the explosive was chosen because one of the most common attacks on military vehicles in asymmetric conflicts, in which IEDs were used, were the cases regarding the detonation of explosives which have a direct influence on the less protected vehicle’s side. The explosive was placed towards the vehicle based on the assumptions included in the AEP-55 vol. 3 test methodology. Their effectiveness was assessed on the basis of the result comparison of registered accelerations in vehicle’s characteristic construction points. In order to tests the effectiveness of energy-absorbing panels, numerical calculations were conducted using the finite element method. The CONWEP option implemented in the LS-DYNA system was used to simulate the effects of the blast wave (Świerczewski and Sławinski in Eng Trans 65(4):587–599 (2017), [1]).