Modeling an Explosively Driven Fluid

Team: 8

School: Albuquerque High

Area of Science: Physics

Interim: Problem Definition:

One of the biggest threats American citizens and service members face abroad is attack via an improvised explosive device (IED). Since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, these make-shift bombs have become the weapon of choice for terrorists due to their ability to be easily obtained and deployed. While, American soldiers have recently developed better methods and protocols for detecting these devices before they can detonate, they often still pose as a significant risk to the bomb squads that are tasked with neutralizing them. The sheer variety of explosive types, detonating devices, anti-tamper mechanisms, and methods of delivery that can be used in an IED make manually handling or disarming them often difficult or unfeasible. All too often, squads must neutralize a bomb by using an explosive charge that not only destroys the detonation device but also initiates a secondary explosion, producing collateral damage. In response to this, experts are now looking at using shaped charges to drive jets of incompressible fluids, like water, into IEDs in order to break up the components of the bomb without initiating a dangerous secondary explosion.

The purpose of this project is to find the shape of a liner containing an incompressible liquid that will produce the longest, best penetrating jet and thus be the most effective at neutralizing IEDs safely.


Problem Solution:

In order to find the shape for the liquid liner that will produce the longest jet that is practically possible for a certain sized charge, my team will write a python-based 3-dimensional arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) hydrodynamic code that will provide an accurate approximation to the jet behavior of an incompressible fluid with a certain initial volume and shape. Our team will then run our code with a series of different shaped fluids and predict which shape will produce the best jet. Our hydrocode will employ the three conservation laws (mass, momentum, and energy) and a finite difference scheme develop an accurate solution to given situation. Due to the fact that our code will be fully 3-dimensional we will need to employ parallel computing techniques to allow our program to reach a solution within a reasonable amount of time.


Progress to Date:

We have just finished researching the physics and numerical methods that necessary for our hydrocode and have begun to write the preprocessing section of our program.


Expected Results:

We expect that our program will be able to describe the jet behavior of a incompressible liquid of a certain size and shape with a high degree of resolution and with only a 1-2% variation from real world results.


References:

Collins, Gareth. "An Introduction to Hydrocode Modeling." AMCGMedia. Applied Modeling and Computation Group, 2 Aug. 2002. Web. 14 Oct. 2009. amcg.ese.ic.ac.uk/~gareth/publications/sales_2/download/intro.pdf.

"Firepower." Future Weapons. Discovery Channel. 7 Feb. 2008. Television.

Lee, Donny. "Pure Applied." Fluid Mechanics. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2008. http://www.gaussianmath.com/fluidmech/fluidmech.html.

Rider, Bill. "Rider_CSRI_June2007." Sandia National Laboratory. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2009. https://cfwebprod.sandia.gov/cfdocs/CCIM/.../Rider_CSRI_June27_2007.pdf.

Walter, Katie. "Shaped Charge Technology." Science and Technology Review. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, n.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2009. https://www.llnl.gov/str/Baum.html.

Team Members:

  Carson Kent

Sponsoring Teacher: Joan Newsom

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