Modeling of aqueous foam blast wave attenuation

The use of aqueous foams enables the mitigation of blast waves induced by the explosion of energetic materials. The two-phase confinement gives rise to interphase interactions between the gaseous and liquid phases, which role have been emphasized in shock-tube studies with solid foams [1, 2]. Multifluid formalism enables the thermo-mechanical disequilibria between phases to be taken into account. The flow model ensures the correct estimation of the acoustic impedance of the two-phase media. As for the numerical scheme, Riemann solvers are used to describe the microscopic fluid interactions, the summation of which provides the multiphase flux. The role of the different transfer mechanisms is evaluated in the case where the liquid ligaments of the foam matrix have been shattered into droplets by the shock impingement. Characteristics of blast waves in heterogeneous media leads to a decrease of overpressure. The numerical results have been compared favorably to experimental data [3, 4]

Modeling of aqueous foam blast wave attenuation

The use of aqueous foams enables the mitigation of blast waves induced by the explosion of energetic materials. The two-phase confinement gives rise to interphase interactions between the gaseous and liquid phases, which role have been emphasized in shock-tube studies with solid foams [1, 2]. Multifluid formalism enables the thermo-mechanical disequilibria between phases to be taken into account. The flow model ensures the correct estimation of the acoustic impedance of the two-phase media. As for the numerical scheme, Riemann solvers are used to describe the microscopic fluid interactions, the summation of which provides the multiphase flux. The role of the different transfer mechanisms is evaluated in the case where the liquid ligaments of the foam matrix have been shattered into droplets by the shock impingement. Characteristics of blast waves in heterogeneous media leads to a decrease of overpressure. The numerical results have been compared favorably to experimental data [3, 4]

Blast wave mitigation by dry aqueous foams

International audienceThis paper presents results of experiments and numerical modeling on the mitigation of blast waves using dry aqueous foams. The multiphase formalism is used to model the dry aqueous foam as a dense non-equilibrium two-phase medium as well as its interaction with the high explosion detonation products. New experiments have been performed to study the mass scaling effects. The experimental as well as the numerical results, which are in good agreement , show that more than an order of magnitude reduction in the peak overpressure ratio can be achieved. The positive impulse reduction is less marked than the overpressures. The Hopkinson scaling is also found to hold particularly at larger scales for these two blast parameters. Furthermore, momentum and heat transfers, which have the main dominant role in the mitigation process, are shown to modify significantly the classical blast wave profile and thereafter to disperse the energy from the peak overpressure due to the induced relaxation zone. In addition, the velocity of the fireball, which acts as a piston on its environment, is smaller than in air. Moreover , the greater inertia of the liquid phase tends to project the aqueous foam far from the fireball. The created gap tempers the amplitude of the transmitted shock wave to the aqueous foam. As a consequence, this results in a lowering of blast Communicated by O. Igra. wave parameters of the two-phase spherical decaying shock wave