Simulation of Shockwave Effects on a Ship-like Structure due to Underwater Explosions

Underwater explosions that threaten the hull integrity and proper operation of navy ships' systems and subsystems are considered from the viewpoint of damage estimation. The commercial code LS-DYNA with the Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian numerical technique is used to analyze the shock effects on structural components of a ship-like form for three different scenarios. Computed maximum permanent deformations are matched with the corresponding keel shock factor (KSF) values for searching a functional relationship of a linear form. Although observed for limited simulations and therefore should be viewed with caution, the linear dependency of the maximum permanent deformations on the KSF values implies that the KSF may be a simple indicator for estimating the extent of damage due to underwater blasts.