Modeling Mine Blast with SPH

Accurately and efficiently modeling the loads applied to a vehicle by buried explosive (mine blast) is a persistent need. In this study, Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) was used to effectively model mine blast. The buried explosive and soil were modeled with SPH, while Lagrangian FEM elements were used for the vehicle plate. The approach was validated against a series of mine-blast experiments performed by the Ernst Mach Institute (Freiburg, Germany), in which the momentum applied to different geometries of steel plate suspended above the soil was measured. The momentum predicted from the SPH models ranged from 14% to 18% above the measured values, depending on plate geometry. Therefore, predictions from the SPH model corresponded closely with measured momentum but were conservative, as would be desired for designing vehicles. Furthermore, the SPH approach has the potential to be computationally efficient relative to an Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) approach because an Eulerian solid mesh was not needed to model expansion of the explosive. This advantage is particularly important for models that include large vehicle targets, as an ALE approach would require large Eulerian meshes, significantly increasing the memory and execution time demands.