A coupled FD-SPH framework for the damage evaluation of ceramic-steel composite structures subjected to blast loading

Abstract

Ceramic-composite structures are important for developing lightweight vehicles under the threat of high explosives or improvised explosive devices on battlefields. In this paper, the damage process of the ceramic-steel double-layered target subjected to blast loading is simulated by developing a coupled finite difference-smoothed particle hydrodynamics methodology. The shock wave propagation in air medium is simulated using the finite difference method, while the damage and fragmentation of ceramic medium is predicted using smoothed particle hydrodynamics. The information of different physical variables is transferred from finite difference to smoothed particle hydrodynamics by using the immersed boundary method. Firstly, the SPH solver was validated by simulating the high-velocity impact of a ceramic sphere on a ceramic-steel double-layered plate. Afterwards, the damage and fracture mechanisms of ceramic-steel multilayered plates with different types and thicknesses under blast loading were investigated. The numerical results obtained from the coupled finite difference-smoothed particle hydrodynamics approach were compared against the available experimental data, which demonstrates that the developed FD-SPH computational framework is capable of capturing crack propagation and damage patterns of ceramic composite structures well.