Numerical Evaluation of Craters Produced by Explosions on the Soil Surface

Studies of craters produced by explosions above and underneath the ground surface are rarely found in the open technical literature. Most reports are confidential and access is limited to government agencies. Much of the information on explosively formed craters found in the literature is based on experimental data. Numerical studies were very limited until recently. An ablity to predict the anticipated size of crater is crucial to identification of the corresponding damage that might be caused by a given explosive charge, or to assessment of the magnitude of the charge if this is not known. In this paper a non-linear dynamic numerical analysis of the explosion phenomena in clay soils associated with different amounts of TNT explosive charge is performed using the ABAQUS/Explicit computer program. To validate the numerical procedure and material constitutive models used in the present work, a comparison with experimental results is first performed. The results obtained illustrate that the agreement between the numerical and the experimental results is reasonable. A study of the influence of soil density on the crater dimensions is then undertaken. From the numerical results obtained, a new prediction equation is proposed for the crater dimensions as a function of the explosive charge considered. This equation represents the approximation of the numerical results by least squares fitting.