REDUCING STRUCTURAL WEIGHT AND INCREASING PROTECTION IN SIMPLE STRUCTURES SUBJECTED TO BLAST LOADS

One of the main thrusts in current Army Science & Technology (S&T) activities is the development of occupant-centric vehicle structures that make the operation of the vehicle both comfortable and safe for the soldiers. Furthermore, a lighter weight vehicle structure is an enabling factor for faster transport, higher mobility, greater fuel conservation, higher payload, and a reduced ground footprint of supporting forces. Therefore, a key design challenge is to develop lightweight occupant-centric vehicle structures that can provide high levels of protection against explosive threats. In this paper, concepts for using materials, damping and other mechanisms to design structures with unique dynamic characteristics for mitigating blast loads are investigated. The Dynamic Response Index (DRI) metric [1] is employed as an occupant injury measure for determining the effectiveness of the each blast mitigation configuration that is considered. A model of the TARDEC Generic V-Hull structure comprises the vehicle considered in this study. The material properties and the configuration of the inner bulkheads that connect the outer V-shaped bottom with the inner floor are used as design parameters for reducing the DRI at a typical occupant location. In this particular example, it is demonstrated that the weight of the structure can be reduced by about ~12% and simultaneously, the DRI can be reduced by ~24%. This is achieved by creating an energy absorbing/decoupling mechanism between the outer hull, the inner floor, and the single degree of freedom upper torso system.