Computational analysis of fluid–structure interaction based blast-mitigation effects

Abstract

Advanced non-linear dynamics, finite element computational methods and tools are utilized in order to assess the blast wave mitigation potential of the fluid–structure interaction phenomena involving rigid and deformable structures. The employed computational methods and tools are verified and validated by first demonstrating that they can quite accurately reproduce analytical solutions for a couple of well-defined blast wave propagation and interaction problems. Then the methods/tools are used to investigate the fluid–structure interaction phenomena involving deformable structures while accounting for both the interaction of the incident blast wave with the structure and for the structure-motion induced blast wave (at the back-face of the structure). To assess the role of the structure deformability, i.e. the role of the shock waves generated within the structure, the results obtained are compared with their rigid structure counterparts. This comparison established that no additional structure-deformability-related blast-mitigation effects are observed in the case of fully supported blast wave loading while, under exponentially decaying blast wave loading, such effects are observed but only under conditions when the shock wave propagation time within the structure is comparable with the incident wave decay time.