BALANCE OF PERFORMANCE PARAMETERS FOR SURVIVABILITY AND MOBILITY IN THE DEMONSTRATOR FOR NOVEL DESIGN (DFND) VEHICLE CONCEPTS

This paper addresses the balance of performance parameters of occupant survivability and vehicle mobility during trade study analysis and simulation for the TARDEC Demonstrator for Novel Design (DFND) vehicle concepts. Occupant survivability and vehicle mobility are often competing attributes in the design of current armor protected tactical and combat ground vehicles. Increased armor weight and high stand-off height parameters are favorable for occupant survivability during underbelly blast events but are detrimental to vehicle dynamics mobility performance. TARDEC and Pratt & Miller Engineering are implementing a motorsports based design process and simulation approach using a holistic systems engineering trade study to develop potential concepts that maximize force protection, vehicle mobility, and vehicle survivability. A number of specialized simulation tools including hypervelocity explicit finite element analysis and multi-body simulation are used interactively to provide accurate representations of blast and mobility events.