Blast waveform tailoring using controlled venting in blast simulators and shock tubes

A critical challenge of any blast simulation facility is in producing the widest possible pressure-impulse range for matching against equivalent high-explosive events.Shock tubes and blast simulators are often constrained with the lack of effective ways to control blast wave profiles and as a result have a limited performance range.Some wave shaping techniques employed in some facilities are reviewed but often necessitate extensive geometric modifications,inadvertently cause flow anomalies,and/or are only applicable under very specific configurations.This paper investigates controlled venting as an expedient way for waveforms to be tuned without requiring extensive modifications to the driver or existing geometry and could be widely applied by existing and future blast simulation and shock tube facilities.The use of controlled venting is demonstrated experimentally using the Advanced Blast Simulator(shock tube)at the Australian National Facility of Physical Blast Simulation and via numerical flow simulations with Computational Fluid Dynamics.Controlled venting is determined as an effective method for mitigating the impact of re-reflected waves within the blast simulator.This control method also allows for the adjustment of parameters such as tuning the peak overpressure,the positive phase duration,and modifying the magnitude of the negative phase and the secondary shock of the blast waves.This paper is concluded with an illustration of the potential expanded performance range of the Australian blast simulation facility when controlled venting for blast waveform tailoring as presented in this paper is applied.

Non-dimensional analysis on blast wave propagation in foam concrete:Minimum thickness to avoid stress enhancement

Foam concrete is a prospective material in defense engineering to protect structures due to its high energy absorption capability resulted from the long plateau stage.However,stress enhancement rather than stress mitigation may happen when foam concrete is used as sacrificial claddings placed in the path of an incoming blast load.To investigate this interesting phenomenon,a one-dimensional difference model for blast wave propagation in foam concrete is firstly proposed and numerically solved by improving the second-order Godunov method.The difference model and numerical algorithm are validated against experimental results including both the stress mitigation and the stress enhancement.The difference model is then used to numerically analyze the blast wave propagation and deformation of material in which the effects of blast loads,stress-strain relation and length of foam concrete are considered.In particular,the concept of minimum thickness of foam concrete to avoid stress enhancement is proposed.Finally,non-dimensional analysis on the minimum thickness is conducted and an empirical formula is proposed by curve-fitting the numerical data,which can provide a reference for the application of foam concrete in defense engineering.

Blast wave characteristics of multi-layer composite charge:Theoretical analysis,numerical simulation,and experimental validation

This article investigates the characteristics of shock wave overpressure generated by multi-layer composite charge under different detonation modes.Combining dimensional analysis and the explosion mechanism of the charge,a peak overpressure prediction model for the composite charge under singlepoint detonation and simultaneous detonation was established.The effects of the charge structure and initiation method on the overpressure field characteristics were investigated in AUTODYN simulation.The accuracy of the prediction model and the reliability of the numerical simulation method were subsequently verified in a series of static explosion experiments.The results reveal that the mass of the inner charge was the key factor determining the peak overpressure of the composite charge under single-point detonation.The peak overpressure in the radial direction improved apparently with an increase in the aspect ratio of the charge.The overpressure curves in the axial direction exhibited a multi-peak phenomenon,and the secondary peak overpressure even exceeded the primary peak at distances of 30D and 40D(where D is the charge diameter).The difference in peak overpressure among azimuth angles of 0-90°gradually decreased with an increase in the propagation distance of the shock wave.The coupled effect of the detonation energy of the inner and outer charge under simultaneous detonation improved the overpressure in both radial and axial directions.The difference in peak overpressure obtained from model prediction and experimental measurements was less than 16.4%.

Damage assessment of aircraft wing subjected to blast wave with finite element method and artificial neural network tool

Damage assessment of the wing under blast wave is essential to the vulnerability reduction design of aircraft. This paper introduces a critical relative distance prediction method of aircraft wing damage based on the back-propagation artificial neural network(BP-ANN), which is trained by finite element simulation results. Moreover, the finite element method(FEM) for wing blast damage simulation has been validated by ground explosion tests and further used for damage mode determination and damage characteristics analysis. The analysis results indicate that the wing is more likely to be damaged when the root is struck from vertical directions than others for a small charge. With the increase of TNT equivalent charge, the main damage mode of the wing gradually changes from the local skin tearing to overall structural deformation and the overpressure threshold of wing damage decreases rapidly. Compared to the FEM-based damage assessment, the BP-ANN-based method can predict the wing damage under a random blast wave with an average relative error of 4.78%. The proposed method and conclusions can be used as a reference for damage assessment under blast wave and low-vulnerability design of aircraft structures.

Mesh Size Effect in Numerical Simulation of Blast Wave Propagation and Interaction with Structures

Numerical method is popular in analysing the blast wave propagation and interaction with structures.However,because of the extremely short duration of blast wave and energy trans-mission between different grids,the numerical results are sensitive to the finite element mesh size.Previous numerical simulations show that a mesh size acceptable to one blast scenario might not be proper for another case,even though the difference between the two scenarios is very small,indicating a simple numerical mesh size convergence test might not be enough to guarantee accu-rate numerical results.Therefore,both coarse mesh and fine mesh were used in different blast scenarios to investigate the mesh size effect on numerical results of blast wave propagation and interaction with structures.Based on the numerical results and their comparison with field test re-sults and the design charts in TM5-1300,a numerical modification method was proposed to correct the influence of the mesh size on the simulated results.It can be easily used to improve the accu-racy of the numerical results of blast wave propagation and blast loads on structures.

Analysis of Blast Wave Propagation Inside Tunnel

The explosion inside tunnel would generate blast wave which transmits through the longitudinal tunnel. Because of the close-in effects of the tunnel and the reflection by the confining tunnel structure, blast wave propagation inside tunnel is distinguished from that in air. When the explosion happens inside tunnel, the overpressure peak is higher than that of explosion happening in air. The continuance time of the blast wave also becomes longer. With the help of the numerical simulation finite element software LS-DYNA, a three-dimensional nonlinear dynamic simulation analysis for an explosion experiment inside tunnel was carried out. LS-DYNA is a fully integrated analysis program specifically designed for nonlinear dynamics and large strain problems. Compared with the experimental results, the simulation results have made the material parameters of numerical simulation model available. By using the model and the same material parameters, many results were adopted by calculating the model under different TNT explosion dynamites. Then the method of dimensional analysis was used for the simulation results. As overpressures of the explosion blast wave are the governing factor in the tunnel responses, a formula for the explosion blast wave over-pressure at a certain distance from the detonation center point inside the tunnel was derived by using the dimensional analysis theory. By comparing the results computed by the formula with experimental results which were obtained before, the formula was proved to be very applicable at some instance. The research may be helpful to estimate rapidly the effect of internal explosion of tunnel on the structure.

Experimental and numerical study of the blast wave decrease using sandwich panel by granular materials core

Among the intrinsic properties of some materials,e.g.,foams,porous materials,and granular materials,are their ability to mitigate shock waves.This paper investigated shock wave mitigation by a sandwich panel with a granular core.Numerical simulations and experimental tests were performed using Autodyn hydro-code software and a shock tube,respectively.The smoothed particle hydrodynamics(SPH)method was used to model granular materials.Sawdust and pumice,whose properties were determined by several compression tests,were used as granular materials in the sandwich panel core.These granular materials possess many mechanisms,including compacting(e.g.,sawdust)and crushing(e.g.,pumice)that mitigate shock/blast wave.The results indicated the ineffectiveness of using a core with low thickness,yet it was demonstrated to be effective with high thickness.Low-thickness pumice yielded better results for wave mitigation.The use of these materials with a core with appropriate core reduces up to 88%of the shock wave.The results of the experiments and numerical simulations were compared,suggesting a good agreement between the two.This indicates the accuracy of simulation and the ability of the SPH method to modeling granular material under shock loading.The effects of grain size and the coefficient of friction between grains have also been investigated using simulation,implying that increasing the grain size and coefficient of friction between grains both reduce overpressure.

DYNAMIC LOAD ANALYSIS OF UNDERGROUND STRUCTURE UNDER EFFECT OF BLAST WAVE

A semi-analytical method of solving the problem of dynamic stress concentration of arbitrary underground structure under the effect of blast waves was introduced. Using the Fourier transform theory, the shock waves （in the forms of SH-waves） can be converted into frequency bands. After employing complex functions and conformal mapping, the admittance functions of various underground structures were obtained. Then, the problem of the time domain dynamic stress response of underground structure can be easily solved through the Fourier inverse transform. At last, the results and curves of the dynamic stress for the square, triangle and horseshoe cavity were presented.

Numerical simulation of the parabolic shell surface under blast wave loading

Deformation of parabolic shell surface under explosion shock waves is a complex dynamic problem. Because of reflection and interference of blast wave, it＇s hard to analytically delineate the dynamic responds of radar parabolic shell surface on blast wave. To gain the characteristics of thin shell deformation under impulsive loading of blast wave, numerical simulation methods for blast load on the shell structure was studied and analyzed. Euler-Lagrange numerical simulation was implemen- ted by AUTODYN code to simulate the problem. Through analysis on deflection feature of radial po- sition under different explosive mass and detonation height, an equation was founded by fitting the deflection results from numerical simulation results of shockwave loading. Experiments were ar- ranged to confirm the validity of the formula. The results gained by simulation are consistent with experiments, and the formula can be used to delineate the deflection of aluminum alloy parabolic shell under blast loading.

Local blast wave interaction with tire structure

The paper presents modelling and simulation of a local blast wave interaction with a tire of a logistic truck supporting military operations.In the military industry,it is desired to improve effectiveness and strength of vehicle components and simultaneously to minimize the risk of crew injuries.Therefore,the main goal of this paper is to present an attempt to improve blast resistance of a tire.Based on the developed,verified and validated finite element model an optimization procedure was conducted to minimize the damage of a tire subjected to a blast wave.The main issue in the performed computations was to estimate an influence of the cords angle in each layer.For this purpose,a pre-processor script was developed in order to easily modify the finite element model so that the generation process was perfo rmed automatically on the basis of optimization variables.Dynamic response of a tire subjected to blast wave in different cases(cords configurations) was analyzed.It was shown that the optimized cords angles configuration reduces tire local damage and increases its blast resistance.

Nanometer ultrastructural brain damage following low intensity primary blast wave exposure

Blast-induced mild traumatic brain injury（m TBI） is of particular concern among military personnel due to exposure to blast energy during military training and combat.The impact of primary low-intensity blast mediated pathophysiology upon later neurobehavioral disorders has been controversial.Developing a military preclinical blast model to simulate the pathophysiology of human blast injury is an important first step.This article provides an overview of primary blast effects and perspectives of our recent studies demonstrating ultrastructural changes in the brain and behavioral disorders resulting from open-field blast exposures up to 46.6 k Pa using a murine model.The model is scalable and permits exposure to varying magnitudes of primary blast injuries by placing animals at different distances from the blast center or by changing the amount of C4 charge.We here review the implications and future applications and directions of using this animal model to uncover the underlying mechanisms related to primary blast injury.Overall,these studies offer the prospect of enhanced understanding of the pathogenesis of primary low-intensity blast-induced TBI and insights for prevention,diagnosis and treatment of blast induced TBI,particularly m TBI/concussion related to current combat exposures.

THE LOCUS OF SHOCK FRONT OF SPHERICAL BLAST WAVES WITH BACK PRESSURE

This papaer presents an analytic formula for the locus of shock front of sphericalblast waves with back pressure. Meanwhile, it is shown that the wave velocity is inversely proportions to the area of shock wave in the Lagrangian coordinate space. If shock wave ispropagating into the gas at rest, the wave velocity is also inversely propagating into the gasat rest, the wave velocity is also inversely proportional to the area of shock front in the Eulerian coordinate space. The results obtained are generally applicable and may be suited to thewave velocity of contracting spherical shock wave.

Attenuation Effect of Expansion Configuration and Acoustic Material on Propagation of Blast Waves in a Duct

With recent increase of cars, the noise problem has been caused by the exhaust sounds released from exhaust pipes, which consist of weak and pulsed shock waves called blast waves. To diminish the noise, a silencer is set up in front of the exhaust pipe. In the present study, reflectors were installed in the high-pressure section of the shock tube to generate blast waves, and three types of expansion region were investigated, combined with acoustic material of glass wool. The pressure decay was evaluated by transmission factor and reflection factor for the incident blast wave, together with pressure histories and high-speed Schlieren photography. As results, it was confirmed that the acoustic material greatly contributed to blast-wave attenuation: the one stage expansion model with glass wool recorded the highest decay of the peak over pressure for transmission, and other models with glass wool showed the second highest. The acoustic material also contributed to decay of reflected shock waves propagating toward an upstream duct.

Mathematical Model to Locate Interference of Blast Waves from Multi-Hole Blasting Rounds

Maximum charge per delay in a blasting round is universally accepted as the influencing parameter to quantify magni-tude of vibration for any distance of concern. However, for any blasting round experimental data reveals that for same charge per delay magnitude of vibration varies with total charge. Considering linear transmission of blast waves, the paper firstly investigates into the influence of explosive weight, blast design parameters and geology of strata on magnitude and characteristics of vibration parameters and thereafter communicates that possibly interference of blast waves generated from same and different holes of a blasting round result into variation in vibration magnitude. The paper lastly developed a mathematical model to evaluate points of interference of blast waves generated from single- and multi-hole blasting round.

Biomechanical modeling for the response of human thorax to blast waves

A simplified finite element model of a human thorax had been developed for probing into the mechani- cal response in simple and complex blast environments. The human thorax model was first created by CT images with blast loading applied via a coupled arbitrary Lagrangian- Eulerian method, allowing for a variety of loads to be considered. The goal is to analyze the maximum stress distri- butions of lung tissue and peak inward thorax wall velocity and to know the possible regions and levels of lung injury. In parallel, a mathematical model has been modified from the Lobdell model to investigate the detailed percentage of lung injury at each level. The blast loadings around the human tho- rax were obtained from the finite element model, and were then applied in the mathematical model as the boundary con- ditions to predict the normalized work of the human thorax lung. The present results are found in agreement with the modified Bowen curves and the results predicted by Axels- son＇s model.

Effect of Blasting Stress Wave on Dynamic Crack Propagation

Stress waves affect the stress field at the crack tip and dominate the dynamic crack propagation.Therefore,evaluating the influence of blasting stress waves on the crack propagation behavior and the mechanical characteristics of crack propagation is of great significance for engineering blasting.In this study,ANSYS/LS-DYNA was used for blasting numerical simulation,in which the propagation characteristics of blasting stress waves and stress field distribution at the crack tip were closely observed.Moreover,ABAQUS was applied for simulating the crack propagation path and calculating dynamic stress intensity factors(DSIFs).The universal function was calculated by the fractalmethod.The results show that:the compressive wave causes the crack to close and the reflected tensile wave drives the crack to initiate and propagate,and failure mode is mainly tensile failure.The crack propagation velocity varies with time,which increases at first and then decreases,and the crack arrest occurs due to the attenuation of stress waves and dissipation of the blasting energy.In addition,crack arrest toughness is smaller than the crack initiation toughness,applied pressure waveforms(such as the peak pressure,duration,waveforms,wavelengths and loading rates)have a great influence on DSIFs.It is conducive to our deep understanding or the study of blasting stress waves dominated fracture,suggesting a broad reference for the further development of rock blasting in engineering practice.

Development of an experimental method for well-controlled blast induced traumatic limb fracture in rats

Heterotopic ossification(HO)is a consequence of traumatic bone and tissue damage,which occurs in 65%of military casualties with blast-associated amputations.However,the mechanisms behind blast-induced HO remain unclear.Animal models are used to study blast-induced HO,but developing such models is challenging,particularly in how to use a pure blast wave(primary blast)to induce limb fracture that then requires an amputation.Several studies,including our recent study,have developed platforms to induce limb fractures in rats with blast loading or a mixture of blast and impact loading.However,these models are limited by the survivability of the animal and repeatability of the model.In this study,we developed an improved platform,aiming to improve the animal's survivability and injury repeatability as well as focusing on primary blast only.The platform exposed only one limb of the rat to a blast wave while providing proper protection to the rest of the rat's body.We obtained very consistent fracture outcome in the tibia(location and pattern)in cadaveric rats with a large range of size and weight.Importantly,the rats did not obviously move during the test,where movement is a potential cause of uncontrolled injury.We further conducted parametric studies by varying the features of the design of the platform.These factors,such as how the limb is fixed and how the cavity through which the limb is placed is sealed,significantly affect the resulting injury.This platform and test setups enable well-controlled limb fracture induced directly by pure blast wave,which is the fundamental step towards a complete in vivo animal model for blast-induced HO induced by primary blast alone,excluding secondary and tertiary blast injury.In addition,the platform design and the findings presented here,particularly regarding the proper protection of the animal,have implications for future studies investigating localized blast injuries,such as blast induced brain and lung injuries.

Energy and blast performance of beryllium in a model thermobaric composition in comparison with aluminum and magnesium

A direct comparison is made between the effectiveness of Al,Mg,and Be powders as additional fuels in model thermobaric compositions containing 20%fuel,20%ammonium perchlorate,and 60%RDX(1,3,5-Trinitro-1,3,5-triazacyclohexane)passivated with wax.Experimentally determined calorimetric measurements of the heat of detonation,along with the overpressure histories in an explosion chamber filled with nitrogen,were used to determine the quasi-static pressure(QSP)under anaerobic conditions.Overpressure measurements were also performed in a semi-closed bunker,and all blast wave parameters generated after the detonation of 500 g charges of the tested explosives were determined.Detonation calorimetry results,QSP values,and blast wave parameters(pressure amplitude,specific and total impulses)clearly indicate that Be is much more effective as an additional fuel than either Al or Mg in both anaerobic post-detonation reactions as well as the subsequent aerobic combustion.The heat of detonation of the RDXwax/AP/Be explosive mixture is over 40%and 50%higher than that of the mixture containing aluminum and magnesium instead of beryllium,respectively.Moreover,the TNT equivalent of the Be-containing composition due to the overpressure in the nitrogen-filled explosion chamber is 1.66,while the equivalent calculated using an air shock wave-specific impulse at a distance of 2.5 m is equal to 1.69.The high values of these parameters confirm the high reactivity of beryllium in both the anaerobic and aerobic stages of the thermobaric explosion.

Physics-informed machine learning model for prediction of ground reflected wave peak overpressure

The accurate prediction of peak overpressure of explosion shockwaves is significant in fields such as explosion hazard assessment and structural protection, where explosion shockwaves serve as typical destructive elements. Aiming at the problem of insufficient accuracy of the existing physical models for predicting the peak overpressure of ground reflected waves, two physics-informed machine learning models are constructed. The results demonstrate that the machine learning models, which incorporate physical information by predicting the deviation between the physical model and actual values and adding a physical loss term in the loss function, can accurately predict both the training and out-oftraining dataset. Compared to existing physical models, the average relative error in the predicted training domain is reduced from 17.459%-48.588% to 2%, and the proportion of average relative error less than 20% increased from 0% to 59.4% to more than 99%. In addition, the relative average error outside the prediction training set range is reduced from 14.496%-29.389% to 5%, and the proportion of relative average error less than 20% increased from 0% to 71.39% to more than 99%. The inclusion of a physical loss term enforcing monotonicity in the loss function effectively improves the extrapolation performance of machine learning. The findings of this study provide valuable reference for explosion hazard assessment and anti-explosion structural design in various fields.

Geotechnical centrifuge model tests for explosion cratering and propagation laws of blast wave in sand

This paper presents the explosion cratering effects and their propagation laws of blast waves in dry standard sands using a 450 g-t geotechnical centrifuge apparatus.Ten centrifuge model tests were completed with various ranges of explosive mass,burial depth and centrifuge accelerations.Eleven accelerometers were installed to record the acceleration response in sand.The dimensions of the explosion craters were measured after the tests.The results demonstrated that the relationship between the dimensionless parameters of cratering efficiency and gravity scaled yield is a power regression function.Three specific function equations were obtained.The results are in general agreement with those obtained by other studies.A scaling law based on the combination of the π terms was used to fit the results of the ten model tests with a correlation coefficient of 0.931.The relationship can be conveniently used to predict the cratering effects in sand.The results also showed that the peak acceleration is a power increasing function of the acceleration level.An empirical exponent relation between the proportional peak acceleration and distance is proposed.The propagation velocity of blast waves is found to be ranged between 200 and 714 m/s.