Sagging damage characteristics of hull girder with trapezoidal cross- section subjected to near-field underwater explosion

To investigate the overall damage characteristics and failure modes of a warship subjected to an un-derwater non-contact near-field explosion, a hull girder with a trapezoidal cross-section was designed, manufactured, and tested. The design criteria and parameters were determined according to the simi-larity criterion. Dynamic responses of the girder freely floating on water were obtained under varying conditions, including stand-off distance, charge mass, and position of attack. Damage morphologies of the girder model were obtained. Based on our analysis, basic conditions for sagging damage of the hull girder are proposed. The aim of this study was to determine an efficient method of attack resulting in the most severe damage to the ship hull. The experimental results show that the girder mainly exhibits a first-order response when the first wet frequency of the girder is close to the frequency of the explosion bubble pulsation. The largest deformation was observed when the underwater explosion occurred directly below the midspan of the girder compared to other explosions of the same intensity at different attack positions. When the ratio of stand-off to maximum bubble radius (lambda) satisfies 0.7 <= lambda<2, the bubble mainly causes sagging damage instead of hogging. As lambda decreases (1 <= lambda<2), the sagging damage increases under the same charge mass. However, as lambda decreases further (0.7 <= lambda<1), the sagging deformation decreases. This is likely due to the impact of the liquid jet formed by the collapsing bubble, which causes the girder deformation to shift from sagging back to hogging deformation. The initial shock wave excites the high-frequency response of the girder structure but contributes very little to the overall velocity and displacement. However, bubble pulsation typically causes a low-frequency response, which will affect the velocity and displacement of the girder. The low-pressure region of the flow field formed by bubble pulsation and resonant coupling between the girder and the bubble are the predominant causes of damage to the overall girder structure.(c) 2021 China Ordnance Society. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co. Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

A trapezoidal hull girder was designed, manufactured, and tested to investigate the damage characteristics and failure modes of a warship in an underwater non-contact near-field explosion. Results showed that the girder mainly exhibited sagging damage, with the largest deformation observed when the explosion occurred directly below the midspan of the girder. The ratio of stand-off to maximum bubble radius was found to affect the type and magnitude of girder deformation, with sagging deformation increasing at higher ratios and decreasing at lower ratios. The low-pressure region of the flow field formed by bubble pulsation and the resonant coupling between the girder and the bubble were identified as the main causes of damage to the overall girder structure.