Dynamic response of shallow buried structures associated with landmine clearing operations

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The development of mechanical means of landmine clearing using flail machines requires a good knowledge of load transfer and tool–soil–landmine interaction. Recent research have provided a good understanding of the soil–tool interaction, but load transfer and responses of buried landmines due to loading from the flails remains undefined. Buried landmines act as unsupported buried structures and loads from the flailing motion are considered as impact loading on the soil surface. A 4 degree-of-freedom mechanical model is constructed and corresponding experiments are conducted to better understand the load transfer and dynamic responses of buried structures due to surface impact loading. The model and experiment is limited to a single impact load directly above the structure, and the buried structure is assumed to move only in the vertical direction. Experiments are conducted for various load magnitude and depth of burial for buried structure in two types of soil. The minimum surface impact forces needed to trigger a landmine in prescribed conditions for two different types of soils have been found. This information could be useful in the design optimization of a mine flail. A correction factor to account for nonlinearity in the form of the ratio of Burgers model and Kelvin stiffness and damping constants is introduced. Considering an appropriate correction factor, the response behavior of the model compares well with the experimental results. The model, while simple, is deemed adequate to represent and predict the behavior of a buried landmine in a mine clearing condition – or any other unsupported buried structure – in soil and sand medium subjected to surface impact loads.