Tag Archives: Uintah

Uintah Simulations of Perforation Experiments

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Perforation

ABSTRACT: A simulation of a simple penetration experiment is performed using Material Point Method (MPM) through the Uintah Computational Framework (UCF) and interpreted using the post-processing visualization program VisIt. MPM formatting sets a background mesh with explicit boundaries and monitors the interaction of particles within that mesh to predict the varying movements and orientations of a material in response to loads. The modeled experiment compares the effects of an aluminum sphere impacting an aluminum sheet at varying velocities. In this work, the experiment called launch T-1428 (by Piekutowski and Poorman) is simulated using UCF and VisIt. The two materials in the experiment are both simulated using a hypoelastic-plastic model. Varying grid resolutions were used to verify the convergent behavior of the simulations to the experimental results. The validity of the simulation is quantified by comparing perforation hole diameter. A full 3-D simulation followed and was also compared to experimental results. Results and issues in both 2-D and 3-D simulation efforts are discussed. Both the axisymmetric and 3-D simulation results provided very good data with clear convergent behavior.

See the link below for the full report.

Experiment in Uintah

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Funding: CSM group receives $1.1M aimed at military vehicle safety

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Stills from YouTube video of buried roadside explosive

As one of four institutions collaborating with the University of Colorado — Boulder,  the CSM group in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Utah, will be developing constitutive models for soils, as well as full-scale simulation capabilities in Uintah to predict blast and ejecta from shallow buried explosives (such as roadside improvised explosive devices).  The $1.1M slated for CSM work presumes the project will last 5 years.  For more information, see the University of Colorado’s press release.

Research: Weibull fragmentation in the Uintah MPM code

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Tough disk impacting brittle disk

Below are links to two simulations of disks colliding. The first is elastic and the second uses a fracture model with spatially variable strength based on a scale-dependent Weibull realization. Both take advantage of the automatic contact property of the MPM.

WeibConstMovie:  disks colliding without fracture

WeibPerturbedGood: disks colliding with heterogeneous fracture

This basic capability to support statistically variable strength in a damage model has been extended to the Kayenta plasticity model in Uintah.

Publication: Statistical perturbation of material properties in Uintah

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Swan, S. and R. Brannon (2009)

Illustration of stair-stepping typical of finite sampling from a Weibull distribution

Current simulations of material deformation are a balance between computational effort and accuracy of the simulation. To increase the accuracy of the simulated material response, the simulation becomes more computationally intensive with finer meshes and shorter timesteps, increasing the time and resource requirements needed to perform the simulation.  One method for improving predictions of brittle failure while minimizing computational overhead is to implement statistical variability for the material properties being simulated. This method has low computational overhead and requires a relatively small increase in resource requirements while significantly increasing the precision of simulation results. Currently, most simulation frameworks inaccurately describe brittle and heterogeneous materials as uniform bodies of equal strength and consistency. This over-simplification underscores the need to implement statistical variability to help better predict material response and failure modes for materials that contain intermittent abnormalities such as changes in hardness, strength, and grain size throughout the specimen. Uintah, the computational framework developed by the University of Utah’s C-SAFE program, has a simplistic native Gaussian distribution function that was hard-coded into select material models. The goal of this research is to create an easily duplicable method for enabling dynamic global variability according to a Weibull distribution in constitutive models in Uintah and to implement said ability into the constitutive model Kayenta. The main application of Kayenta is to simulate geological response to penetration and perforation. For the purpose of simulating failure in brittle geological samples, the Weibull distribution produces realistic statistical scatter in constituent properties that correlates well to flaws and irregularities observed in laboratory tests.

Available online:
http://www.mech.utah.edu/~brannon/pubs/2009SWAN_spring2009UROPfinalReport.pdf

Publication: Application of Uintah-MPM to shaped charge jet penetration of aluminum

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J. Burghardt, B. Leavy, J. Guilkey, Z. Xue, R. Brannon

The capability of the generalized interpolation material point (GIMP) method in simulation of penetration events is investigated. A series of experiments was performed wherein a shaped charge jet penetrates into a stack of aluminum plates. Electronic switches were used to measure the penetration time history. Flash x-ray techniques were used to measure the density,length, radius and velocity of the shaped charge jet. Simulations of the penetration event were performed using the Uintah MPM/GIMP code with several different models of the shaped charge jet being used. The predicted penetration time history for each jet model is compared with the experimentally observed penetration history. It was found that the characteristics of the predicted penetration were dependent on the way that the jet data are translated to a discrete description. The discrete jet descriptions were modified such that the predicted penetration histories fell very close to the range of the experimental data. In comparing the various discrete jet descriptions it was found that the cumulative kinetic energy flux curve represents an important way of characterizing the penetration characteristics of the jet. The GIMP method was found to be well suited for simulation of high rate penetration events.

Available Online:

http://iopscience.iop.org/1757-899X/10/1/012223
http://www.mech.utah.edu/~brannon/pubs/7-2010BurghardtLeavyGuilkeyXueBrannon_ApplicMPMshapedCharge.pdf

Powder metal jet penetration into stressed rock

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The Uintah computational framework (UCF) has been adopted for simulation of shaped charge jet penetration and subsequent damage to geological formations.  The Kayenta geomechanics model, as well as a simplified model for shakedown simulations has been  incorporated within the UCF and is undergoing extensive development to enhance it to account for fluid in pore space.

A generic penetration simulation using Uintah

The host code (Uintah) itself has been enhanced to accommodate  material variability and scale effects. Simulations have been performed that import flash X-ray data for the velocity and geometry of a particulated metallic jet so that uncertainty about the jet can be reduced to develop predictive models for target response.  Uintah’s analytical polar decomposition has been replaced with an iterative algorithm to dramatically improve accuracy under large deformations. Continue reading →