Rapid Evaluation of the Destructive Power Caused by Accidental Explosion of Space Launch Vehicles

Abstract

Space launch vehicles are usually loaded with a large amount of propellant, and the destructive power caused by their explosion is significant. The altitude of an accidental explosion will lead to differences in the destructive power, because the environmental parameters of different altitudes are different, and the explosion shock wave parameters are closely related to the environmental parameters. Therefore, it was necessary to establish a set of analytical methods to rapidly analyze the relationship between altitude and the explosion shock wave parameters. A large number of simulation conditions were tested at 0~10 km altitude using the nonlinear dynamics software AUTODYN. The relationship between the explosion shock wave pressure P, the proportional distance z, and the altitude h was obtained, which could be used to rapidly characterize the explosion shock wave pressures at different altitudes. A comparative analysis was conducted with the experimental results to verify the scientificity of the fitting formula. The results indicate that the error between the experimental and calculated values is less than 5.80%, indicating that the rapid evaluation formula established in this paper is reasonable. These findings not only enrich the theory related to explosion shock waves, but also provide a rapid analysis basis for the accidental explosion of space launch vehicles.

Keywords

• space launch vehicles
• accidental explosion
• shock wave parameters
• altitude
• atmospheric environmental parameters
• rapid evaluation