Next generation Computational Algorithms for the Virtual Testing of Military Systems for Survivability and Design Studies

This proposal is concerned with the development of an advanced three-dimensional simulation facility for the analysis of environments such as produced by high-velocity impact of kinetic energy penetrators under the Army STTR Program. This facility will enable the Virtual Testing and Design of Military Systems with increased survivability as demanded by the Army's Future Combat System (FCS) and Objective Force. Another area of application of the resulting facility will be in the analysis and design of civil and military structures with improved survivability, as required by the current and future homeland security landscape. The main deliverable of this project is a software library with functionality to address all the critical aspects of the simulation of complex phenomena in mechanics of materials, including those occurring in penetration environments and other mission-critical problems in the Army. The strategy is to develop the next generation of solid-mechanics solvers based on lagrangian formulations, incorporating the relevant physical phenomena and informed with the latest advances in mesh generation, optimization and re-generation which have been the main obstacles hindering this technology. The proposed research will advance the state of the art in computational mechanics in the areas of mesh generation, optimization and re-generation and will provide a versatile framework for simulating penetration environments as required by the next generation of simulation tools in the U.S. Army.