Simulation of mine blast deflection - deflection from flexible plates

Blast deflection is a protection principle which is used to reduce the effect of blast waves from for example mine detonations. For combat vehicles this usually means that the bottom plate is v-shaped to deflect the blast wave to the sides. In this study has deflection of blast waves from flexible plates been investigated. The results indicate that the risk of injury on the crew can be reduced by deflecting the blast wave. Conclusions: - Blast deflections works equally good for flexible plates as for rigid plates. - The total impulse is relatively insensitive to the plates being rigid or flexible. - The blast deflection leads to the result that the global parameters, velocity and acceleration, for the vehicle can be reduced by about 30-50 %, if the plate angle is 22.5°. - The blast deflection leads to that the local parameters, velocity and acceleration, for the bottom plate can be reduced to about half the values. - The blast deflection reduces the local parameters more than the global. - The bottom plate must not be too thin if the local parameters should be reduced satisfactorily.