Mitigation of Blast Injuries through Modeling and Simulation

With the current state of world events, the threat of buried explosives used against military vehicles is more pronounced than ever before. The introduction of the MRAP and MTVR vehicles have helped mitigate this threat to a degree, but military personnel continue to suffer from both death and serious bodily injury as a result of IED/mine explosions. To address this need, improved comprehensive simulation capabilities are needed to help design improved safety components for vehicle occupants. The proposed effort, which builds on previous work performed under US Army funding, will develop next-generation simulation capabilities to better predict the effects of buried explosives on ground vehicles and occupants. Blast and soil modeling will be performed using advanced simulation tools developed as part of the DoE ASCI program at the University of Utah and the vehicles will be modeled with the LS-DYNA FE code. Occupant modeling will be performed using LS-DYNA for the Phase I. The final product of the Phase I will be a macro-coupled MPMICE-LS-DYNA model, which leverages the best capabilities of each simulation tool. Future phases of the project would involve micro-coupling MPMICE and LS-DYNA and developing supporting advanced 3D design tools for placing and evaluating occupant safety components.