Structure-medium interaction simulations

Providing test-validated design/construction criteria for hardened structures is one of the primary research tasks of the Survivability and Protective Structures program being executed under the Tri-Service Reliance Civil Engineering Science and Technology Plan. A major objective of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency is to develop and demonstrate physically rational computational techniques for predicting explosive-induced environments, structural loads, and damage due to detonations of buried conventional weapons. The overall approach involves four steps: (1) conducting experiments to measure ground shock and structure loads, motions, and damage; (2) conducting mechanical property tests on the material constituents; (3) developing first-principle numerical codes and mathematical soil/concrete/steel constitutive models; and (4) conducting comparative analyses of measurements and numerical simulations to verify adequacy and establish confidence levels. The program's major goal is to understand and define the cause-and-effect relations between the mechanical properties of the soil, concrete, and steel constituents (as represented by the constitutive models) and the calculated and measured results.