Meta Model Blast
Meta Model Blast
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: Landmine detonation continues to be a serious threat to Army military vehicles in theater. One strategy
Received 20 February 2014 to mitigate its effects is to use engineering design techniques to reshape the underbody of the hull.
Received in revised form Previous works have shown that reshaping the hull's underbody can change the vehicle's response to
18 August 2014
blast loading. In the presented work, a metamodel-based shape optimization methodology is proposed
Accepted 22 August 2014
Available online 3 September 2014
for optimizing shallow-buried blast-loaded underbody structures. The shallow-buried blast load is
simulated using an empirical model. Additional studies are conducted on target positions with respect to
the blast load and load positioning and the effects of optimization parameters on the optimal solution. It
Keywords:
Shallow-buried
is shown that target vertical position affects impulse response comparison, and for center-buried loads,
Blast the v-shaped underbody target produces a lower impulse than that of other shaped targets. Optimal
Metamodel solutions obtained using an adaptive domain reduction strategy produce more accurate solutions than a
Optimization single iteration strategy. Based on the proposed optimization method, a unique v-like underbody shape is
presented as the optimal underbody solution.
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction protect the drive train [3]. Experimental and numerical research
has shown that a v-shaped target can reduce applied impulse from
Anti-vehicle landmines continue to be a serious threat to Army a charge by deflecting high-pressure gas and soil ejecta into the
military operations in theater. In fact, in previous conflicts on in- ambient. In addition, a portion of the applied pressure has a hori-
ternational soil, loss due to landmine detonation was as much as zontal component that does not contribute to the vertical impulse
70%. A major injury and kill mechanism that results from mine transferred to the vehicle. This improves better protection because
detonation is large gross vehicle movement. This type of movement less load is applied to the vehicle [4].
can cause injury to an occupant's lower leg, spine, and head if the In addition to v-shape targets, other shaped targets have been
occupant is not restrained [1]. Strategies developed to mitigate investigated [5e8]. Of particular interest is a work by Fox et al. [8],
these effects include increasing vehicle standoff (the distance from in which experimental and computational studies were conducted
the bottom of the vehicle to the ground), which reduces impulse on the effect of shallow-buried blast location on shape target
and local loading; adding retrofit kits or a sacrificial mass to the response. The results showed that downwardly convex and concave
underbody of hulls; incorporating v-shaped and monocoque hulls; targets produce lower impulse than a flat plate for a given load.
and sandbagging the floor of trucks to prevent occupant exposure Reasons given for impulse reduction were increased distance be-
to lethal fragments and increase the vehicle's weight [2]. tween the explosive and target and a geometric shaping effect.
The v-shaped hull design is commonly used today to protect Quarter loads generally produced larger target impulse than center
armored military vehicles from improvised explosive devices loads.
(IEDs). Current examples of vehicles that have v-shaped crew Additional works [4,9e12] consider experimental and/or nu-
compartments are the International MaxxPro, Casspir APC, and merical analysis of various shaped targets. Chung Kim Yuen et al.
Cougar H. The MaxxPro also has an additional underbody plate to [4] presented experimental and numerical results for v-shaped
steel plates with different included angles subjected to localized air
blast. Standoff was defined as the distance between the tip of the v
and the closest face of the explosive. It was shown that for a fixed
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 410 273 7722.
E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] standoff and load size, if the v included angle is increased, then
(T.E. Johnson), [email protected] (A. Basudhar). impulse and mid-point deflection are decreased. In addition, for a
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijimpeng.2014.08.010
0734-743X/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
230 T.E. Johnson, A. Basudhar / International Journal of Impact Engineering 75 (2015) 229e240
fixed-plate v angle and load size, if standoff is decreased, then maximize the strain energy absorbed by a coupled aluminum
impulse and mid-point deflection are increased. Barker et al. [12] substructure. The optimized plate was composed of material where
conducted buried blast experiments and numerical analysis, us- the blast load was highest but was removed along the boundary
ing ConWep, on steel, hollow box, v-shaped targets of 10 , 20 , and sides to increase energy absorption. In a second work, Goetz et al.
30 , with a top floor plate using centered and off-centered blast [20] further showed that by modifying the HCA algorithm,
loads. Throughout the experiments, each target had the same convergence could be reached in both one and two material opti-
standoff, which was defined as the distance from the spine of the v mization (multi-material approach). By extension, Hofstetter et al.
to the surface of the soil. Off-center shots were located midway [21] used the Livermore Software Technology Corporation (LSTC)
between the spine of the v and the outermost edge of the target. implementation of HCA to develop optimized one-material sub-
The results showed that as target angle increased, target impulse structures for different objective functions.
decreased. It was suggested that this result was due to a geometric The previously reviewed optimization based approaches to
effect. It was also shown that for a charge size of 800 g, off-center structural design implement air blast loading only. Shape and to-
shots produced a higher impulse. pology optimization of structures for buried blast loading have not
In the works previously cited, target response was primarily been considered. One possible reason is that, until now, buried blast
compared by keeping the standoff constant. Again, standoff is simulations have required ALE-based fluid structure interaction
defined as the distance from the ground, or charge, to the lowest simulations, which require greater computational resources than
point on the target. It was reported that v targets produced a lower ConWep for air blast loading. In this work, buried blast simulations
impulse because of a standoff effect (i.e., underbody structure is will be conducted using a recently developed empirical model. This
farther away from the blast) or a geometric effect (i.e., the under- approach greatly reduces runtime and computational resources as
body vents blast ejecta). One inquiry of interest in this work is the it only requires Lagrangian elements. Validation of the developed
performance of shaped underbodies with alternative methods of empirical model will be conducted using published experimental
comparison. Would a v-shaped object outperform a flat-shaped data. Also, a geometric boundary shape optimization technique will
object if standoff is defined from the ground to the top of the v be implemented in this work. The geometry that will be optimized
instead of the spine? Experimental results from Anderson et al. [13] is a curve. Once developed, the curve is extruded to form a surface
begin to answer this question. Anderson et al. conducted experi- that represents the underbody of target. The surface is meshed and
ments on v-shaped targets where the centers of gravity of the connected to a top structure. The model is completed by applying
targets were held constant. From Anderson's data, impulse com- boundary and loading conditions to the structure. This technique
parisons could also be made between structures with the same can be extended to surfaces that can be extruded into solids.
distance from the ground to the structure's crown. Anderson's work Extruded shapes are ideal for vehicle surrogate structures due to
is further discussed in Section 3, as it is used to validate the pre- enhanced manufacturability with respect to highly complex
sented numerical model. shapes, as suggested by Argod [14] and Jain [16].
As already shown, targets of various shapes have been consid- The objective of this work is to present a metamodel-based
ered. These shapes were most likely determined by ad hoc tech- shape optimization methodology for the design of underbody
niques. While this approach may be useful in a down-selection structures for targets subjected to shallow-buried blast loads. The
process between a limited number of designs, it may not result in a objective of optimization is to minimize crew compartment im-
superior structural shape for an objective of interest. Structural pulse calculated using the finite element method. In the sections
optimization techniques provide a mathematically based systemic that follow, the optimization problem, target geometry and blast
approach to satisfy objectives of interest. In 2008, Gurumurthy [3] parameters are defined, and the presented empirical model is
conducted 2D and 3D impulse analysis on air-blast-wave-loaded validated using experimental results. The proposed shape optimi-
vehicle underbody shapes. Optimization was also conducted on a zation methodology is also defined. Numerical results and discus-
2D elliptical underbody shape to reduce maximum impulse. sion are presented for targets with various standoffs and for
Recently, a series of works that address shape optimization of underbody shape optimization.
rectangular panels for air blast load has been presented. Argod et al.
[14,15] developed a nodal coordinate shape optimization method-
2. Model definition
ology for solid panels that is defined by so-called velocity fields. The
basis shape functions for the panels were the product of sine
In this section, the optimization problem, target geometry, and
functions. The optimization technique of choice was the Differential
model components are defined and model validation is presented.
Evolutionary algorithm, which is non-gradient-based. It was shown
The basic optimization problem that is solved is to determine the
that a panel with a double bulge is ideal for minimizing local out-
underbody shape that minimizes crew compartment vertical im-
of-plane displacement and impulse. Jain et al. [16] presented an
pulse. Crew compartment impulse is a local component of the
extension to Argod's work by considering additional nodal coor-
target's global impulse.
dinate shape optimization methodologies and aluminum honey-
The optimization problem is to minimize a variable-dependent
comb sandwich panels under air blast load. Nayak et al. [17,18]
cost function that is subject to constraints. In this work, the vari-
focused primarily on the shape optimization of honeycomb sand-
ables of the cost function are the coefficients of the Fourier series
wich structures and found that shape-optimized solid panels are
expansion that defines the underbody shape. This is further dis-
better at reducing backface deformation, but shape-optimized
cussed in Section 4.1. The standard form of the optimization is as
honeycomb panels are more effective at reducing transmitted
follows:
acceleration.
Find a, b.
Although few examples of topology [19e21] or topography [22]
minimize F(a, b)
optimization of blast-resistant structures exist in the literature,
subject to
works of note were presented by Goetz et al. [19,20] of the Uni-
versity of Notre Dame. Goetz et al. used the Hybrid Cellar Automata Sðx; a; bÞ ¼ 0
(HCA) method to design a, CONWEP loaded, single material sub-
aL < a < aU (1)
structure to reduce the total energy that is transferred from the
L U
blast to the vehicle's interior. Optimization was conducted to b <b<b ;
T.E. Johnson, A. Basudhar / International Journal of Impact Engineering 75 (2015) 229e240 231
Fig. 1. The configuration of the model that is used in FEA simulations and Fig. 3. The picture on the left shows Anderson's [13] base experimental setup. The
optimization. picture on the right shows the base setup with a plate.
232 T.E. Johnson, A. Basudhar / International Journal of Impact Engineering 75 (2015) 229e240
Table 1
The experimental test matrix from Anderson [13] and results and simulation comparison.
Test series Moisture Mean density Plate type Plate distance to Impulse experiment Impulse simulation Percent
content (%) (kg/m3) surface (cm) (kg-m/s) (kg-m/s) difference (%)
In this section, the shape function is defined and the shape 4.2. Optimization methodology
optimization methodology is given. The presented methodology is
partitioned into eight steps and is design for finite element struc- Metamodel-based optimization was conducted to determine
tures. The developed methodology is also implemented using the optimal shape of the target's underbody. Metamodels present a
LSTC's optimization code LS-OPT. simple and inexpensive surrogate (approximated mathematical
expression) of the actual design and, once created, can be used to
4.1. Shape function find the optimum [26]. In this work, the software LS-OPT is used for
optimization. A summary of the entire metamodel-based
The shape optimization methodology implemented in this work
is a type of geometric boundary method [25]. The geometry that is
0.15
optimized is a curve. The curve is designed by the Fourier series
expansion which is.
0.1
a X
k
0.05
yðxÞ ¼ 0 þ ðan cos nux þ bn sin nuxÞ (3)
Length (m)
2 n¼1
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
where u ¼ 2p/x is the fundamental frequency and an and bn are real
-0.05
valued coefficients. The quantity x represents the length of the field.
The boundary conditions for the target are that y ¼ 0, x ¼ 0 and -0.1
y ¼ 0, x ¼ x. The quantity x is defined as x ¼ 1. The conditions are
P
satisfied by setting a0 ¼ 2ð an Þ. This also removes an extra -0.15
variable from the analysis. Length (m)
The choice of Fourier series expansion as the shape function
v inverse u flat u w
allows simple and complex shapes to be included in the design
domain. However, the number of Fourier terms (k) and the bounds Fig. 6. The curves represent basic shapes that can be derived from Fourier series
of an and bn must be determined. This determination was expansion.
234 T.E. Johnson, A. Basudhar / International Journal of Impact Engineering 75 (2015) 229e240
Fig. 8. Summary of the problem setup and execution process using LS-OPT.
Fig. 9. The targets are positioned so that the center of gravity of the targets underbodies are vertically aligned.
Fig. 10. The targets are positioned so that the center of gravity of the targets are vertically aligned.
236 T.E. Johnson, A. Basudhar / International Journal of Impact Engineering 75 (2015) 229e240
1.6 1.6
1.4 1.4
Normalized Impulse
Normalized Impulse
1.2 1.2
1 1
0.8 0.8
0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4
0.2 0.2
0 0
flat inverse u u v w flat inverse u u v w
underbody c.g. total c.g. floor height standoff
Fig. 11. The data for targets with uniform underbody center of gravity and uniform Fig. 14. The data are for targets with uniform floor height and uniform standoff.
target center of gravity.
since its curved shape is closer to the blast and absorbs a higher
that target B could produce a lower impulse than target A if standoff impulse. It is interesting that the w underbody shaped target pro-
was made uniform. This section presents a set of comparisons that vides a slightly higher impulse than the flat. As shown in Fig. 9, the
start to address the question of how to best position targets for the top of the w underbody section is further away from the blast
evaluation of impulse. Four different methods of positioning the (31 cm) than the flat (24 cm), but its double nadirs are closer.
targets for impulse comparison are presented: uniform underbody The second method of comparing target impulse is by setting
c.g. height, uniform global c.g. height, uniform standoff, and uniform the global c.g. height for each target to be uniform. This method is
target floor height. The loading cases considered are centered, offset, slightly different than the previous case where the c.g. of each
and offset with target forward velocity. underbody sacrificial mass was made uniform. The resultant effect
The first two set of comparisons that are considered are uniform of prescribing a uniform global c.g. is that the bottom left corner of
underbody c.g. (Fig. 9) and uniform global c.g. positioned (Fig. 10) the targets are within a few centimeters of each other, as shown in
over a centered blast load. As a base for comparison, the distance Fig. 10. The results in Fig. 11 show that the target impulses are
from the charge to the target is measured in the vertical direction generally higher than in the uniform underbody c.g. method. This
and starts from the bottom left edge of the target and ends at the result is reasonable in light of the observation that the nadirs of
charge surface. As shown in Figs. 9 and 10, positioning by uniform these targets are generally closer to the blast. In comparing inverse
c.g. results in varying distances of closeness to the charge. The u target impulses between both positioning cases, the results show
numerical simulation results for vertical impulse of the targets are that target impulse has decreased since the target is now farther
given in Fig. 11. Fig. 11 shows that, when underbody c.g. is uniform, away from the charge. It must be noted that *IIM does not account
the v target has a lower impulse than the flat, as generally expected, for confinement effects; thus, any increase in impulse due to the
and the inverse u target has the largest impulse of all the targets. It potential confinement of high-pressure gas beneath the inverse u
is expected that the u target produces a higher impulse than the v target is not taken into account. The u target has a higher impulse
Fig. 12. The targets are positioned so that the floor of the targets are vertically aligned.
Fig. 13. The targets are positioned so that the standoff between the targets are the same.
T.E. Johnson, A. Basudhar / International Journal of Impact Engineering 75 (2015) 229e240 237
1.2 0.7
Normalized Impulse
Normalized Impulse
1 0.6
0.8 0.5
0.4
0.6
0.3
0.4
0.2
0.2
0.1
0
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
flat inverse u u v w
Charge Size (g)
static dynamic
center off center
Fig. 17. The data are for targets that are static and dynamic.
Fig. 15. This data is from a work by Barker et al [12].
than the v because its round edges result in a higher impulse. The w v-shaped target (Fig. 15). The charge was located halfway between
target has the highest impulse because it is closest to the blast. the spine of the v and the outermost edge of the target and along
The next positions for comparison are uniform floor height the horizontal line of the center load. The results showed a po-
(Fig. 12) and uniform standoff (Fig. 13) under center blast load. The tential for increased impulse by off-center shots. Fox et al. [8]
results for both cases are given in Fig. 14. In the case where target compared centered to quarter-off-center shots for flat, v angle
floor height is uniform, it is noted that the v has a lower impulse 13 , and v angle 21 . It was shown that impulse was increased by
than the flat. This result suggests that adding a v-shaped underbody 19%, 32%, and 19%, respectively.
mass to the target underbody is better at reducing impulse than not Two types of off-axis scenarios are examined in this work: off-
adding a mass or and a flat underbody structure. This behavior was axis static and off-axis dynamic. Off-axis static is the case where
also seen in Anderson [13] and may challenge the notion that the target is not moving and the underbody of the target is loaded
increasing standoff (moving the structure away from the charge) is beneath the front passenger side. In the off-axis dynamic case, the
the only way to reduce target impulse. An examination of u impulse target is loaded beneath the front passenger side while traveling at
vs. flat shows that u is higher than flat by a small amount. This a speed of 13 m/s. In the numerical simulation, the velocity is
result is reasonable since u is closer to the blast. In comparing u and applied at time t ¼ 0, and the impulse load is applied shortly
flat to v, it is seen that v produces the lowest impulse because the thereafter. To allow for comparison with previously generated
slanted edges produce a reduction in impulse. The w target pro- centered buried target impulse data, the vertical positions of the
duces a much larger impulse than flat, v, and u because its nadirs targets are the same as the targets with uniform underbody center
are closets to blast. Thus, the relative impulses of w, u, flat, and v of gravity (see Fig. 9). The horizontal positions are below the front
appear to be reasonable. The inverse u target produces a smaller passenger side wheel and represent the case where the passenger
impulse than the flat because its underbody peak point is further wheel applies pressure to a buried charge. The results in Fig. 17 are
away from the blast. for the static and dynamic off-axis loading cases shown in Fig. 16.
In the case where target standoff is uniform (Fig. 13), standoff is The results indicate that there is no significant difference in the
approximately 41 cm. The total distance from the charge to the amount of impulse the target receives between the two scenarios.
nadir of the underbody hull is approximately 46 cm. The results The v target has the highest impulse, which seems reasonable since
show that the flat has the highest impulse and the v target has the one half of the underbody is directly facing the mine. It must be
lowest impulse. It was also shown that the impulse magnitudes are noted that experimental work from Barker et al. and Fox et al. show
much lower than in the previously considered target positions. This that off-axis shots produce an increase in target impulse. However,
result is caused by the increase in distance from the charge to the the results in Fig. 17 show a decreased impulse. For example, the flat
structure with respect to the previously considered positions. target is decreased from 1 (see result in Fig. 11) to about 0.5. This
Target loading in theater is stochastic and can come from many result may indicate a limitation of *IIM to properly handle off-
different underbody locations. One feasible location is the off-axis center loading. In addition, results from Barker et al. and Fox
front driver or passenger side. This type of loading could occur et al. are for quarter shots, which are different than the current
when the front driver or passenger wheel applies pressure to a loading. Further investigation is required to determine *IIM ability
buried charge. Barker et al. [12] conducted off-center shots for a 20 to accurately apply off-center load to finite element structures.
Fig. 16. The targets are positioned so that the center of gravity of the target underbodies are vertically aligned. The charge is located off-axis.
238 T.E. Johnson, A. Basudhar / International Journal of Impact Engineering 75 (2015) 229e240
Table 5
These are the results from metamodel-based optimization.
Case Strategy Load type No. of points No. of iter. Total no. Metamodel Predicted optimal Computed Predict. Actual solu.
per iter. of points error (%) εm solution (kg-m/s) (kg-m/s) error (%) εp error (%) εa
three sets of results were noted. As the number of points per iter-
ation was increased, the number of iterations was decreased so that
the total number of points evaluated was nearly the same. For a
total of 120 points, the SDR strategy gives lower errors than the
corresponding single iteration optimization in two out of three
cases. The solution errors are more than 5% in all of these cases,
suggesting that the solution is yet to converge. A significantly high
error is obtained in the case with 24 starting points and 5 iterations.
This may indicate a local optimum or simply a slow rate of
convergence with five iterations being too low for the problem. In
the cases with 240 total points, two of the three errors using SDR
are lower than the SI error and the third one is slightly higher. The
prediction error is quite low, however, in all the cases, and the
slightly higher error in the case with 24 points per iterations and 10
iterations may be due to a local optimum. The mean εa and εp errors
using the SDR strategy are lower than the SI strategy, as expected
from an iterative strategy that refines critical regions. The advan-
tage of SDR over SI in providing an accurate solution is most
prominent in the cases with 360 total samples, as the iterative
solution approaches convergence. The errors in cases 11 and 12 are
significantly lower than with the SI strategy with an equal number
of points. The error in case 10 is also lower than with the SI, but the
difference is not as remarkable. This fact may be because of the low
number of points per iteration (and therefore low starting points) Fig. 18. Figure (a) represents the optimal solution from metamodel-based optimiza-
in this case, which can lead to a local optimum. Overall, it can be tion center-loaded target (the optimal design variables are a1 ¼ 0.0514, a2 ¼ 0.0386,
stated that, in general, the optimum solution obtained using an SDR a3 ¼ 0.006, a4 ¼ 0.0034, a5 ¼ 0.0020, b1 ¼ 0.002579, b2 ¼ 0.0057, b3 ¼ 0.004,
b4 ¼ 0.001, b5 ¼ 0.003); (b) rotated view.
strategy is likely to be more accurate than the SI strategy with the
same number of points. It is, however, possible that the SDR solu-
tion may provide a local optimum. However, the accuracy of the optimal solution is dependent on the
The optimal solution using SDR was compared to the impulse number of points used to generate the metamodel and the associated
obtained for the v target. The results show that for a center-loaded optimization strategy. In this work, the GA population size and
target, the lowest computed minimum impulse (2201 kg-m/s) is number of generations are 30. The total number of simulations is 900.
produced using the SDR strategy, with 360 points used to develop The optimization history is given in Fig. 20. The load case evaluated is
sequential metamodels. The optimal values of design variables center, and the targets have uniform floor height. The optimization
a1ea4 for this solution are active. In comparison to impulse of a v- history plot shows that after 30 iterations, the minimum impulse is
shaped target (2610 kg-m/s), the SDR strategy has produced a so- 2377 kg-m/s. This result is 6% greater than the minimum solution
lution with a 16% reduction in crew compartment (Part 1) impulse. found using metamodel-based optimization. This demonstrates that
The optimal underbody shape produced from metamodel-based the solution is not fully converged. When compared to the
optimization is given in Fig. 18. The result shows that a v-shaped metamodel-based optimization Case 4 of Table 5, it is seen that the
profile, with edges that are slightly concaved, is ideal when the metamodel-based approach produces a better solution after only 113
target is centered above the blast. The concaved edges may be a simulations. This number is eight times fewer simulations than with
result of the standoff effect. The underbody shape profile is crude GA optimization, demonstrating that the metamodel-based approach
due to the number of terms used in the Fourier series equation. The
profile could have easily been made smoother by adding more
Fourier terms, but this would increase the design spaces and
computational time required to find the optimal solution. This
demonstrates that there is a tradeoff in the optimization scheme.
The optimal solution for the off-center loading case is given in
case 13 of Table 5 and shown in Fig. 19. The optimization strategy
used to obtain the optimal solution is SDR. The optimal shape,
shown in Fig. 19, is double-concaved. A comparison to the basic
inverse u underbody shape shows that the double-concaved sec-
tions have higher peaks. The double-concaved peaks allow the
target to be further away from the blast load, thus minimizing the
impulse delivered to the target.
2520 Pecora of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory for useful discussions
2500
about target response that results from buried blast loading. The
authors also thank the SURVICE Engineering Company for support
Momentum (kg-m/s)
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