Blast induced fracture modelling using smoothed particle hydrodynamics

• Published in: International journal of impact engineering Vol. 135; p. 103235
• Main Authors: Gharehdash, Saba, Barzegar, Milad, Palymskiy, Igor B., Fomin, Pavel A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.01.2020; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Blast; Computational fluid dynamics; Computer simulation; Convergence; Fluid flow; Fluid mechanics; Fractures; Mathematical models; Parameters; Rock; Shock waves; Smooth particle hydrodynamics; Smoothed particle hydrodynamics; Stability; Viscosity; Blast; Smoothed particle hydrodynamics; Rock
• ISSN: 0734-743X; 1879-3509
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijimpeng.2019.02.001

•A smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) approach to modelling blast induced fractures is developed.•The fracture patterns and crack density calculations are found to be in good qualitative and quantitative agreement with the experimental observations.•Using penalty based contact model and variable particle resolutions can effectively treat complicated blast related problems.•Stabilization schemes such as artificial viscosity and tensile instability have important effects in the developed SPH model. In this study, a penalty based contact treatment in smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) along with variable particle resolutions are adopted to simulate the fracture of Barre granite under blast. The performance of the penalty based contact and different particle resolutions with varying arrangement patterns are illustrated with a number of examples. In order to perform particle convergence study, first order consistency has been enforced by Randles–Libersky modifications. The selection of values for artificial viscosity and tensile instability are presented to better understand the influence of these parameters on computational efficiency and instability problems in Eulerian SPH method. Then, the developed SPH approach is validated against experimental observations for both fracture patterns and crack density calculations. The results show that the SPH solution shows good convergence with increasing particle resolution and is highly dependent on the particle arrangement patterns and refinement parameters. It is also found that, the tensile instability stabilization method has important effect on the solution and the use of artificial viscosity helps to spread the shock wave smoothly into the rock particles. Overall, this research demonstrates that the developed SPH method can be used to qualitatively and quantitatively predict the blast induced fractures and is suitable for accurate modelling of rock under blast. [Display omitted]