Numerical simulations for high-energy impact of thin plates

Perforation of aero-engine fan casing by a single rotating blade

“…Concerning such a fast and transient impact problem, four aspects must be addressed carefully in numerical simulation: meshing, constitutive model, contact surfaces and material transport, and shortcuts [32]. The effects of meshing were studied in [1,9,19,32] and the suggestions were obtained as follows: (a) the element aspect ratio should be near 1:1:1 for 3D brick elements; (b) element-to-element size variation should be kept below 10%; (c) at least three elements should be used through the thickness of the casing; (d) element size in the vicinity of the impactor should be 20% to 25% of the smallest dimension of the contact surface on the impactor; and (e) very fine mesh is needed in the areas of high strain gradients especially where the material is likely to fail. The influences of constitutive relations on projectile impact of steel plates were studied in [9].…”

“…The damaged area on the casing was local but they found that adjacent blades enhance containment capacity, contradicting the conclusions made in [25]. The effects of mesh refinement on numerical simulations of uncontained engine debris impact on thin plates were both studied by Knight Jr. et al [19] and Ambur et al [1]. In their studies, they concluded that very fine mesh should be used to predict damage similar to that obtained from experimental results.…”

Impact Mechanics and High-Energy Absorbing Materials: Review

“…Shim et al (1995) conduct research on modeling deformation, and damage characteristics of woven fabric under small projectile impact, in which the deformation and damage of woven fabric composites are simulated. Ambur et al (2001) develop numerical simulations of high-energy impact over thin metal plates, in which the penetration and perforation process of the projectile over the metal plate are analyzed. Lee et al (2003) develop advanced body armor system utilizing shear thickening fluids, which improves the ballistic penetration resistance of Kevlar fabric composites.…”

Implementing a structural continuity constraint and a halting method for the topology optimization of energy absorbers

“…This type of material damage is often simulated in a finite element (FE) analysis using either the method of element erosion, or tied nodes with failure. Both of these methods have been used to simulate the damage of fragments striking aircraft fuselages (Knight-Jr. et al (2000); Ambur et al (2001)). Element erosion has also been used to simulate the penetration of projectiles, through metal plates, during ballistic impact events (Børvik et al (2003b); Guo et al (2003)); to simulate the behaviour of tensile test specimens loaded to failure (Børvik et al (2003a)); to study high velocity impact of rigid projectiles on beams (Teng and Wierzbicki (2005)); and, to study perforation from rotor fragments during a catastrophic turbine failure (Stamper and Hale (2008)).…”