Modeling Synergistic Damage Mechanisms in Combat Vehicles

"The four major threats of interest in the assessment of target vulnerability and weapon lethality are fragment impacts, blast, hydrodynamic ram and fire. DOD has been working for many years on modeling of the individual effects of each of these threats ontarget damage. The purpose of this project is to model the combined effects of multiple threats and their interactions on target damage. Such interactions have the potential to inflict damage greater than the sum of that produced by each threatindividually. We will develop engineering models of these interactions for both air and light ground vehicles. The models will include synergistic effects such as target response to the combined impact of fragments and blast, and sequential effects suchas fragment impact followed by hydrodynamic ram, then fire and thermal damage. The models will be validated against test data obtained from the literature and from a series of critical tests to be conducted during this project. The models will beintegrated with existing vulnerability assessment models to improve their predictive capabilities."