Scalable computing for the transient elasto-plastic impact analysis of composite armor using the homogenization method

This paper describes impact analyses of armor composites using concurrent coupling of scales through asymptotic expansion homogenization (AEH) in elasto-plastic and transient settings. The AEH method is applied with an explicit time integration algorithm for the transients and an updated Lagrangian scheme for the large displacements. The primary aim of this paper is to present numerical validations against the experiments of S. Zhuang, G. Ravichandran and D.E. Grady [An experimental investigation of shock wave propagation in periodically layered composites. J Mech Phys Solids 2003;51:245–65] and S. Zhang [Shock wave propagation in periodically layered composites, PhD thesis, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 2002] to demonstrate the validity of the computational method for layered armor composites. A parallel computer program was developed to handle the parallel computations across multiple scales and then integrated with a widely available explicit dynamics finite element program. A brief scalability study demonstrates the computational viability of the method.