Mitigation of Vehicle Crew Blast Injuries through Modeling and Simulation Navy SBIR FY2010.1 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2010.1 Topic No.: N101-001 Topic Title: Mitigation of Vehicle Crew Blast Injuries through Modeling and Simulation Proposal No.: N101-001-1023 Firm: CFD Research Corporation 215 Wynn Dr., 5th Floor Huntsville, Alabama 35805 Contact: Vincent Harrand Phone: (256) 726-4814 Web Site: www.cfdrc.com Abstract: Road-side mines and IEDs are the major thread to US military personnel riding in tactical wheeled vehicles. The development of mine protection systems to decrease the vehicle vulnerability and, more importantly, of their crew requires accurate assessment of the effects of blast on the vehicle, armor and on occupants before the vehicle is fabricated and fielded. Unfortunately, there are no computational tools integrating blast dynamics, vehicle structures dynamics and human biomechanics. The goal of this project is to develop a high-fidelity computational framework for automated physics-based simulation of blast damage to armored vehicles and injury potential to vehicle occupants. The proposed framework will integrate models of detonation physics, two-phase (gas, sand/debris) blast wave dynamics, vehicle loading, vehicle dynamics/damage, human body dynamics and injury. It will enable seamless integration of software components from CFDRC, DoD Labs, and commercial tools (FEM, CAD). The modeling tool will be validated against data from field testing and operational accidents. Working with the Navy, Marines the tools will be used to analyze vehicle response to various blast loads, load profiles on crew members, the effectives of the vehicle armor, crew protection and safety designs. The proposed computational framework, CoBi, will provide first ever coupled fluid-structures interaction capability. Benefits: This modeling and simulation software capability will provide a new crew survivability analysis tool, which can be used to evaluate existing vehicles and to design new truck safety components for mitigating blast wave injuries. The main benefit to the warfighter is the increased crew survivability as a result of IED/mine explosions. The software and models will be available to DoD and the primes in open source format. The software and models have great applicability to other DoD and law enforcement agencies. In Phase III, CFDRC plans to work with vehicle manufacturers to help analyze and improve their vehicle designs. Return