Advances In Continuum Modelling Of UrbanWall Structures Impact

Recent advancements of continuum modelling are now allowing significant improvements of urban wall structures impact simulation. Urban wall structural details can now be included in impact modelling that were not previously achievable. These modelling improvements incorporate the inclusion of resolved reinforcement bars in concrete walls, brick and mortar construction details in brick wall construction and resolved cavity and mortar configurations in brick over block wall constructions. These modelling improvements are being achieved not only due to increases in computer hardware speeds and memory, but more so due to a variety of mesh reduction methodologies that have proven to be improved modelling techniques. An adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) technique has been implemented for use in the CTH high rate Eulerian finite difference model. We have applied this AMR to successfully resolve complex material geometries and dominating physical phenomena. In addition, relaxation algorithms have been successfully applied for high rate continuum Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) modelling. These relaxation algorithms are now being used in the ALE-3D computer program to provide high resolution simulation of urban wall impacts and penetrations. These new techniques are now allowing the high rate continuum modelling of physical phenomena that was not previously simulated.