Abstract:
During armed conflicts or peace-support operations, most casualties
are attributed to vehicle-landmine accidents and thus, mine protection fea-tures
are a prerequisite for vehicles serving in these areas. Previously, mine
protection research was predominantly experiment driven and focussed on structural
deformation. Soil parameters were not observed and the influence of soil was not
considered. Accurate soil modelling is necessary because experimental studies have
shown that soil, in particular saturated soil, has a significant effect on the magni-tude
of landmine blast loading on a vehicle. This research describes a numerical
modelling approach for studying soil-blast interaction in landmine explosions. The
numerical analysis is carried out using the non-linear dynamic analysis software,
AUTODYN. The research progressed from (1) the explosion of hemispherical charge
laid on a rigid surface, through (2) the study of the explosion of mine deployed in
dry sand, to (3) the validation of the mine explosion in cohesive soil for different
setups.
A framework for deriving the model for soil with varying moisture contents was
proposed. The subject of the study is prairie soil (cohesive soil). Standard soil
laboratory data are used to determine soil properties that are then used to define
a numerical soil model. Validity of the modelling procedure was ascertained by
comparison with experimental results from the horizontal pendulum series that were
conducted at Defence R&D Canada – Suffield. The applicability of the model was
ascertained for (i) different soil types, (ii) varying moisture content, (iii) different
mine deployment, and (iv) various high explosive. The numerical results are in
reasonable agreement for all observed range of the moisture content. The model
and the methodology is generic and extensible and it is argued that such models
greatly complement mine experiments.
