A multi-objective optimization framework for assessing military ground vehicle design for safety

Abstract

In recent years, the greatest safety threat to military personnel has been from underbody vehicle blast events, but other major threats exist against fuel convoys and due to rollover events. Ground vehicle designers make choices that affect one or more of these risk areas, including the weight and structural design of the vehicle underbody, as well as the design of seating systems that cushion the occupants from the rapid accelerations caused by blast loading. This study uses mathematical and computational tools to evaluate underbody blast, fuel convoy, and rollover safety criteria, and the models are combined into a multi-objective design optimization formulation that minimizes personnel casualties. The models and framework are highlighted and described in detail, and preliminary optimization results are presented under various conditions. The multi-objective behavior of the design problem is explored through weighted-objective Pareto frontiers, and the utility of the model in real-world situations is discussed.

An Introduction to Multiobjective Simulation Optimization

“…We say the feasible set X is (1) continuous if each decision variable can take any value in an interval subset of the real numbers, (2) integer-ordered if each decision variable can take on integer values, and (3) categorical if each decision variable can take on a finite number of noninteger values that may be categorical or unordered. Note that one can define a neighborhood structure on some categorical problems; once the neighborhood structure is defined, these problems may be (Li et al 2015a(Li et al , 2015c continuous: aircraft flight scheduling (Lee et al 2007) d = 3 integer-ordered: aircraft spare part management (Lee et al 2008 integer-ordered: reduce congestion in a lighterage terminal (Zhou et al 2018); differentiated service inventory management ; supply chain management (Amodeo et al 2009;Joines et al 2002;); train traction system design (Dullinger et al 2017) manufacturing d = 2 integer-ordered: production line scheduling (Andersson et al 2007) d ≥ 2 continuous: injection molding (Villarreal-Marroquín et al 2013) military d = 2 continuous: fighter aircraft maintenance (Mattila and Virtanen 2014) d = 3 continuous: military ground vehicle design for safety (Hoffenson et al 2014) mapped to a subset of an integer lattice and considered integer-ordered problems. For the purpose of Table 1, papers classified as categorical do not define such a neighborhood structure.…”

Multilevel Design of Sandwich Composite Armors for Blast Mitigation using Bayesian Optimization and Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines

“…To combat these statistics, blast-protective vehicles such as the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAPV) have been designed. One of the factors that contributes to the blastworthiness of the MRAPV is its v-shaped underbody [3]. The ability of the v-shaped underbody to deflect the blast energy has shown that better armor designs can increase occupant survivability.…”

Modelling and analysis of the vehicle underbody and the occupants subjected to a shallow-buried-mine blast impulse

“…In order to evaluate the damage to a vehicle and its occupants resulting from a landmine blast impulse and to determine the vulnerability of the vehicle, finite element analysis has been widely used recently. 3–10 Erdik et al 11 studied a parametric approach for quantification which used the multiple-material (MM) arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) algorithm. Subsequently, they presented the blast response of a vehicle subjected to a landmine blast under the front left wheel to verify the accuracy of this method.…”