Method for predicting ship crack under near-field underwater explosion loads

Abstract The method for predicting hull crack dimensions under near-field underwater explosion loads is investigated in this paper. The Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) method was used to conduct finite element numerical simulations of the established 5-compartment ship structure model under various standoff distances, explosive charge masses, and attack angles. A total of 32 different working conditions were designed by using the Latin Hypercube method, and the structural damage patterns under near-field underwater explosions were studied. A regression analysis method was used to fit the relationship between impact factors and crack dimensions, and a mathematical regression model for predicting ship crack dimensions was proposed. Through numerical example verification, the predicted results of the mathematical model, when compared with the finite element simulation results, show an error that meets the required prediction accuracy.