Improvements in the Blast-Mitigation Performance of Light-Tactical-Vehicle Side-Vent-Channel Solution using Aluminum-Foam Core Sandwich Structures

Abstract

In the present work, an attempt is made to improve the blast-mitigation efficiency of our recently proposed light-tactical-vehicle side-vent-channel concept/solution. This concept/solution involves the use of side-ventchannels attached to the V-shaped vehicle underbody, and was motivated by the physical concepts and working principles of operation of the so-called “pulse detonation” rocket engines. By proper shaping of the V-hull and side-vent-channels, venting of supersonically-expanding gaseous detonation products is promoted in order to generate a downward thrust on the targeted vehicle. This, in turn, helps mitigate the blast-loads resulting from a shallow-buried mine detonated underneath a light tactical vehicle. The utility and the blastmitigation capacity of this concept were examined in our prior work using several computational and designoptimization methods and tools. The results obtained show that the side-vent-channel solution has a limited (but noteworthy) blast-mitigation capacity. In the present work, an attempt is made to improve the blastmitigation capacity of the side-vent-channel solution by substituting side-vent-channels made of sandwichstructures (consisting of steel face-sheets and aluminum-foam core) for all-steel side-vent-channels. The results obtained revealed that the use of sandwich-structures can improve blast-mitigation performance of the side-vent-channel solution, and that this improvement can be further increased through proper grading of the aluminum-foam density profile through the sandwich-structure core.