MODELING THE EFFECT OF FLUID-STRUCTURE INTERACTION ON THE IMPACT DYNAMICS OF PRESSURIZED TANK CARS

摘要

This paper presents a computational framework that analyzes the effect of fluid-structure interaction (FSI) on the impact dynamics of pressurized commodity tank cars using the nonlinear dynamic finite element code ABAQUS/Explicit. There exist three distinct phases for a tank car loaded with a liquefied substance: pressurized gas, pressurized liquid and the solid structure. When a tank car comes under dynamic impact with an external object, contact is often concentrated in a small zone with sizes comparable to that of the impacting object. While the majority of the tank car structure undergoes elastic-plastic deformations, materials in the impact zone can experience large plastic deformations and be stretched to a state of failure, resulting in the loss of structural integrity. Moreover, the structural deformation changes the volume that the fluids (gas and liquid) occupy and consequently the fluid pressure, which in turn affects the structural response including the potential initiation and evolution of fracture in the tank car structure.For an event in which the impact severity is low and the tank car maintains its structural integrity, shell elements following elastic-plastic constitutive relations can be employed for the entire tank car domain. For events in which the impact severity is higher and the tank car is expected to be punctured, an equivalent plastic strain based fracture initiation criterion expressed as a function of stress triaxiality is adopted for the material in the tank car's impact zone. The fracture initiation is implemented for ductile, shear and mixed fracture modes and followed by further material deterioration governed by a strainsoftening law. Multi-layered solid elements are employed in the impact zone to capture this progressive fracture behavior.The liquid phase is modeled with a linear U_s-U_p Hugoniot form of the Mie-Grueneisen equation of state, and the gas phase is modeled with the ideal gas equation of state. Small to moderate amounts of fluid sloshing are assumed for an impacted tank car in this study. As such, the FSI problem can be solved with the Lagrangian formulation of ABAQUS, and appropriate contact algorithms are employed to model the multi-phase interactions. The force, displacement and impact energy results from the finite element analysis show good correlations with the available shell (side) impact test data. The puncture energy of a tank car in a shell impact scenario is further analyzed. It is demonstrated that the FSI effect needs to be adequately addressed in an analysis to avoid overestimating the puncture resistance of a tank car in an impact event.