Comparison of numerical approaches for modeling a scaled underbelly structure subjected to landmine impulse

The analysis of a vehicle’s underbelly subjected to blast from a landmine is one of the main concerns when evaluating the vehicle’s defensive abilities. Researchers have come up with many algorithms to improve the accuracy and efficiency of blast simulations. In order to compare the differences between algorithms, buried-mine blast simulations are performed in this paper. Numerical models applying the particle blast method (PBM) to define the high explosive and the discrete element method (DEM) to describe the constitutive material model of sand are constructed in detail. In contrast to the coupling method of PBM–DEM, a complete model of the multi-material arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian algorithm is also constructed. Boundary conditions of the two numerical methods are based on a blast experiment performed in this study. Comparisons of deflections and energy are carried out between the two numerical simulation approaches and the experiment. It is found that the coupling method of PBM–DEM is suitable for near-field landmine impulse simulation, and good robustness and computational economy were obtained.