Fluid solid interaction simulation of CFRP shell structure

Abstract

This work attempts to model the dynamic behavior of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) shell structure subjected to water shock wave to improve the results presented in the study by Khawaja et al., 2014. In the previous study, the real physical problem was simplified by decoupling the fluid and the structural phenomena, applying the recorded experimental fluid pressure load to the CFRP shell structure. The current study involves not only structure modeling, as given in the earlier study, but also fluid behavior using the Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) method. The focus of this study is to highlight the difference in structural response between uncoupled and coupled Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) numerical solution, and also to validate the ability of the FSI numerical simulation to solve complex problems, involving the generation and the propagation of water shock waves and their impact on the composite shell structures, using both multi-material ALE (MM-ALE) methods and advanced non-linear Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) strong coupling algorithms. Results obtained from experiments are compared with numerical simulations using the LS-DYNA (R) software. The results are found to be in good agreement with the experimental data and are improved by considering the coupling effects, as the mass of the water acts as a viscous damper and reduces the high-frequency oscillations in the structural response.