<p>Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) designs and utilizes impulsively loaded pressure vessels. For physics experiments with hazardous materials, a two-barrier containment system is needed, where an impulsively (or, explosively) loaded pressure vessel is assembled as an inner confinement vessel, inside an outer containment vessel (subject to static load). Design of the inner and outer vessels and support structure must account for any directional loads imparted by the blast loading. Typically there is a shock-attenuating assembly between the inner confinement and outer containment pressure barriers, which serves to mitigate any dynamic load transfer from inner to outer vessel. Depending on the shock-attenuating approach, numerical predictions of these reaction loads can come with high levels of uncertainty due to model sensitivities.<br>
Present work focuses on the numerical predictions and measurements of the reaction loads due to detonation 30 g of TNT equivalent in the Inner Pressure Confinement Vessel (IPCV) for proton imaging of small-scale shock physics experiments at LANL. Direct reaction load measurements from IPCV testing is presented alongside numerical predictions. Using the experimental measurements from the firing site, we refine the tools and methodology utilized for reaction load predictions and explore the primary model sensitivities which contribute to uncertainties. Quantitative comparisons to test data indicate significant improvement of the modeling techniques and signal other potential sources of model uncertainty. The numerical tools, modeling methodology, and primary drivers of model uncertainty identified here improve the capability to model detonation experiments and enable design load calculations of other impulsively loaded pressure vessels with higher accuracy.</p>

Numerical Simulation and Measurements of Reaction Load for an Impulsively Loaded Pressure Vessel

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/PVP/PVP2021/volume/85314

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