Modeling and simulation of carbon composite ballistic and blast behavior

The design of the next generation of aeronautical vehicles is driven by the vastly increased cost of fuel and the resultant imperative for greater fuel efficiency. Carbon fiber composites have been used in aeronautical structures to lower weight due to their superior stiffness and strength-to-weight properties. However, carbon composite material behavior under dynamic ballistic impact and blast loading conditions is relatively unknown. For aviation safety consideration, a computational constitutive model has been used to characterize the progressive failure behavior of carbon laminated composite plates subjected to ballistic impact and blast loading conditions. Using a meso-mechanics approach, a laminated composite is represented by a collection of selected numbers of representative unidirectional layers with proper layup configurations. The damage progression in a unidirectional layer is assumed to be governed by the strain-rate-dependent layer progressive failure model using the continuum damage mechanics approach. The composite failure model has been successfully implemented within LS-DYNA® as a user-defined material subroutine. In this paper, the ballistic limit velocity (V50) was first established for a series of laminates by ballistic impact testing. Correlation of the predicted and measured V50 values has been conducted to validate the accuracy of the ballistic modeling approach for the selected carbon composite material. A series of close-in shock hole blast tests on carbon composite panels were then tested and simulated using the LS-DYNA® Arbitrary-Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) method integrated with the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) progressive failure composite model. The computational constitutive model has been validated to characterize the progressive failure behavior in carbon laminates subjected to close-in blast loading conditions with reasonable accuracy. The availability of this modeling tool will greatly facilitate the development of carbon composite structures with enhanced ballistic impact and blast survivability.