Computational investigation of blast survivability and off-road performance of an up-armoured high-mobility multi-purpose wheeled vehicle

Since ballistic and blast survivability and off-road handling and stability of military vehicles, such as the high-mobility multi-purpose wheeled vehicle (HMMWV), are two critical vehicle performance aspects, they both (including the delicate balance between them) have to be considered when a new vehicle is being designed or an existing vehicle retrofitted (e.g. up-armoured). Finite-element-based transient non-linear dynamics and multi-body longitudinal dynamics computational analyses were employed, relatively, in the present work to address the following two specific aspects of the performance of an HMMWV: first, the ability of the vehicle to survive detonation of a landmine shallow buried into sand underneath the right wheel of the vehicle and, second, the ability of the vehicle to withstand a simple straight-line brake manoeuvre during off-road travel without compromising its stability and safety of its occupants. Within the first analysis, the kinematic and structural responses (including large-scale rotation and deformation, buckling, plastic yielding, failure initiation, fracture, and fragmentation) of the HMMWV to the detonation of a landmine were analysed computationally using the general-purpose transient non-linear dynamics analysis software ABAQUS/Explicit. The second analysis was carried out using Simpack, a general-purpose multi-body dynamics program, and the main purpose of this analysis was to address the vehicle stability during the off-road travel. The same sand model was used in both types of analysis. Finally, the computational results obtained are compared with general field-test observations and data in order to judge the physical soundness and fidelity of the present approach.