Numerical study on determining design parameters of wheeled armored vehicles

The survivability of the crew is the most important factor to be considered when designing the body of a military combat vehicle, and the design must protect against armor-piercing projectiles and mine blasts, in order to enhance survivability. In this paper, we propose a numerical approach that can be used in the initial design stage when designing military combat vehicles that provide adequate protection against ballistics and mines. First, the basic shape of the vehicle is defined based on an analysis of the dimensions of a similar vehicle, and the thicknesses of the front and side plates are determined by performing a ballistic impact simulation. For the bottom plate design, the primary design parameters and their values, such as the stand-off, bottom angle, bottom thickness, and bottom-side thickness, are defined. Next, the results of a main effect analysis and an analysis of variance for each design parameter are compared to the response indices representing the performance of the vehicle as determined based on the results of the blast impact simulation and then main effect parameters for each response index are confirmed. In addition, the suitable shapes and dimensions of the vehicle that can meet the armor-piercing projectiles and mine blast threat conditions and design constraints are determined from the blast impact simulation results of the design models determined by the design of experiments method.