THE DISCRETE PARTICLE APPROACH TO MODELING AIR, SOIL AND HE FOR BLAST SIMULATIONS

Discrete Particles are just as they sound, individual particles that represent Air, Soil and HE (High Explosives). They are not based upon a continuum theory and should not be confused with SPH (Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics) which is a full Lagrangian continuum theory. The modeling of Air, Soil and HE (High Explosives) with discrete particles requires millions of particles to accurately model the blast event. The innovation in software coupled with the advent of GPU Technology provides an efficient and robust solution to perform the analyses. Consider that the latest GPU processor, the Tesla K40, based upon NVIDIA Kepler^™ Architecture, has 12 GB of GDDR5 memory and 2880 CUDA Cores. A standard workstation with an NVIDIA Tesla GPU is all that is required to perform the calculations and the benefits are a high degree of accuracy and simplified model setup. To demonstrate the use of Discrete Particles to model the blast event and show the effectiveness of GPU computing, the IMPETUS Afea Solver^®, a Non-Linear Transient Dynamic Explicit Solver, was used to perform the analyses presented in this paper. Results are compared with experimental data.