Defense Date

2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering

First Advisor

Ibrahim Guven

Abstract

This work focused on establishing a computational strategy to model airborne particle (e.g. rain drop, ice) impact on aerospace materials at high-speeds in supersonic and hypersonic regimes. To achieve this goal, strain-rate dependent material models, namely Johnson-Cook and Johnson-Holmquist-Beissel, are incorporated into a non-ordinary state-based peridynamics framework. Validations and verifications were performed for benchmark shock-physics problems that present large deformation and material failure for ductile metals and brittle ceramics. A fluid-structure interaction framework was implemented by coupling the developed structural peridynamics solver with an immersed boundary method-based computational fluid dynamics solver to further investigate the effect of coupling mechanisms for water droplet impact on metallic targets. The resulting high-fidelity solutions highlighted the importance of full-coupling effects in the hypersonic regime. Finally, the applicability of the modeling approach was demonstrated on hypersonic weather encounter problems with a carbon-carbon composite which is a very relevant aerospace material with a high-temperature resistance.

Rights

© The Author

Is Part Of

VCU University Archives

Is Part Of

VCU Theses and Dissertations

Date of Submission

12-15-2025

Available for download on Tuesday, December 15, 2026

Share

COinS