Comparison between a Classic and a New Soil Model to Simulate the Effects of Buried Mines

Abstract

On the battlefield, buried mine blasts are among the most violent and destructive threats military vehicles could face. The prediction of armored vehicle behavior subjected to such a blast is of the utmost importance for its dimensioning. A modular test rig has been designed and developed to measure simultaneously the deformation of a metallic plate and the impulse transmitted by the buried explosion in several configurations. These experiments have been reproduced in simulations using two soil models. The first one is a well-known soil and foam material model available in LS-Dyna [1]. This model is defined with elastic moduli, a yield surface and an equation of state as parameters. However, all these parameters are constant, so that any change in soil composition (density, humidity, etc.) needs a new set of parameters, which could be a limitation. The second one is a viscoplastic cap model written as a user routine in LSDyna, and takes into account the degree of water saturation of the soil. This new model has been developed through DGA (French MoD) study [2], and provides a better correlation with experimental results.