A hybrid peridynamics–SPH simulation of soil fragmentation by blast loads of buried explosive

• Validation of the peridynamics soil explosion model with experimental testing results.
• Three-dimensional hybrid SPH–peridynamics simulation of soil explosion due to buried explosives.
• A parallel SPH–Peridynamics code and one-million particle peridynamics simulation.

In this work, we employ both the state-based peridynamics and the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) to simulate soil fragmentation/ejection induced by the blast of buried explosives. We use peridynamics representation to model soil medium, and we use SPH representation to model explosive gas. The key of the simulation is the coupling of the two. In the peridynamics–SPH computational domain, there is an interphase zone, in which a peridynamic particle can have SPH particles within its own horizon, while an SPH particle can have peridynamic particles within its supporting domain. The interactions of the peridynamic and SPH particles in this interphase zone are discussed. By assuming the equivalence of the two methods in the current configuration, we study how to choose simulation parameters that can seamlessly couple the two methods. A Drucker–Prager plasticity soil model at finite strain is used for soil medium and a charge model of equation of state is used to model the buried explosive. Numerical examples are carried out to simulate soil fragmentation/ejection induced by the shock waves from the buried explosive. It is shown that the numerical results are in general agreement with that of the experiment.