Design of computer experiments for improving an impact test simulation

This paper gives an overall presentation of a research project pursued at Los Alamos National Laboratory for the validation of numerical simulations for engineering structural dynamics. An impact experiment used to develop and test the model validation methodology is presented. Design of experiments techniques are implemented to perform parametric studies using the numerical model and improve its predictive quality. The analysis relies on correlation study where input parameters responsible for explaining the total variability of the numerical experiment are identified, then, updated. The quality of the model is assessed via its ability to reproduce the same statistics as those inferred from the experiment data sets. Throughout the paper, a particular emphasis is placed on presenting the contribution to this project of Amanda Wilson, undergraduate student at Texas Tech University, and research assistant at Los Alamos in the summer of 2000 in conjunction with the Los Alamos Dynamics Summer School. The model validation project is described in greater details in the companion paper [1].