Safety assessment of an underground tunnel subjected to missile impact using numerical simulations

This work presents a safety assessment of an underground tunnel subjected to a ballistic missile attack employing the numerical approach. For the impact simulation, a box shaped reinforced concrete (RC) structure with a cross section dimension of 8.0×10.0 m under a soil layer that was attacked by a SCUD missile was modeled using finite element (FE) software LS-DYNA. SCUD missile is one of a series of tactical ballistic missiles developed by Soviet Union during the Cold War, which is adopted for a short-range ballistic missile. The developed FE simulation for the penetration depth of the missile impacting into the soil structure was verified from the well-known formula of the penetration prediction. The soil-structure interaction, the soil type, and the impact missile velocity effects on the penetration depth of the missile into the different soil types were investigated. The safety assessment of the underground tunnel was performed with regard to the different depths of the underground tunnel. For each missile velocity and soil type, a specific depth called the unsafe depth was obtained from the analysis results. The structure beneath the soil beyond this depth remains safe. The unsafe depth was found to be increased with the increasing missile velocity.