Tactical Wheeled Vehicle Survivability: Comparison of Explosive-Soil-Air-Structure Simulations to Experiments Using the Impulse Measurement Device

Abstract : The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center conducted a series of carefully controlled field experiments to quantify the aboveground environments created by the detonation of surface and near-surface bare-charge explosives in or on three very different soil backfills. The experiments provided blast pressure, soil stress, and impulse data for each soil type. A laboratory investigation was conducted on test specimens of each soil type remolded to approximately the same characteristics as the respective backfills. Results of the laboratory tests for each soil type were analyzed to develop a set of recommended strength and compressibility responses that in turn were fit with the simple Hybrid-Elastic-Plastic constitutive model. The model fits for each soil type were used in a series of numerical simulations using the EPIC finite element software to calculate the impulse data obtained from the field experiments. This report documents the results of those simulations and comparisons with the field data.