Small Scale Structure for a Simulated Blast Event Below Add On Armor

Abstract

Full scale explosion tests are very expensive and involve the use of special measurement devices. In order to overcome these difficulties and reduce the overall expense, a unique small scale jig was developed and manufactured. The uniqueness of this reduced scale jig lies in the fact that we are able to emulate the exact acceleration levels on the crew chair wall supports which occur during explosion events beneath the underbelly of a full scale heavy vehicle platform. The complete research and development program was accompanied by an advanced full system FEM simulation performed via LS-DYNA 3D software. The study presents a comparison between the numerical and experimental results for the specific experimental explosion event. The simulation results showed that the acceleration level magnitudes measured at different points on the experimental jig structure as well as on the Hybrid dummy III parts resemble the experimentally measured values