Accelerated Blast Modeling for Synergistic Effects during Cooperative Strike

ABSTRACT: When a structure breaks up following a blast event, it allows the blast wave to propagate through a new opening into another airspace; this continuation of the blast wave is called"secondary blast"and may cause damage to elements in the other airspace. Each step in this process is a candidate for some type of acceleration. Current assessment codes incorporate several Fast Running Models to speed up the calculation of the structural response to the blast wave, but the blast propagation and secondary blast are calculated using engineering equations, many of which are time consuming. In particular, the blast propagation step, performed by iteratively applying currrent blast propagation codes, must back up and restart when there are changes to the room geometry, as occurs when the wall breaks up. Consequently, further speed up of the structural debris step will not yield significant improvements in the total run time until the blast portions of the calculation are running faster as well. We propose to use linear wave propagation models supplemented with corrective adaptive neural networks to model accelerated synergistic blast calculations. BENEFIT: Outside the realm of lethality and vulnerability analysis, Anyar and our partners believe there may be a significant commercial market for a modified version of our physics solvers and the accelerated blast simulation technology that can be used for Department of Homeland Security. In a related field, advanced intelligent payload concepts that involve micro robot motion will require advanced physics solvers for simulating their nonsmooth behavior as they navigate and investigate building structures.