(GRS-681) Validation and further development of the modelling of release scenarios involving improvised explosive and incendiary devices (IEDs) using CFD software, with the aim of enabling the methods to be applied to complex scenarios

[This GRS report is available in German only.]

This project investigated the feasibility of simulating explosions using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods. To this end, various freely available open-source and commercial software packages were first identified and compared on the basis of several criteria. These included, among other things, usage costs, applicability, the underlying physical models and the size of the user community. In particular due to its open-source licence and steadily growing user community, the ‘blastFoam’ solver package (version 4.0.0) from Synthetik Applied Technologies for OpenFOAM was selected for this project.

The package provides additional solvers specifically developed for the simulation of detonations and the resulting field gradients. Two solvers from the package were selected and used to simulate previously conducted blasting experiments. Particular attention was paid to achieving an appropriate balance between the high computational demands of the simulations and the selection of initial parameters intended to reproduce the experiments as accurately as possible. In particular, the transport of particles positioned above the explosive during the experiments had to be incorporated into the simulations.

This work enabled the identification of a suitable solver and realistic modelling conditions, providing a sound basis for addressing the research questions outlined above. Due to the very long computation times, approaches for reducing the computational effort were developed and implemented in order to perform the simulations within a timeframe appropriate to the project. Further optimisation, particularly with regard to reducing computational effort, remains an important objective for future work.