Shields to Maximum Mr Scott

Researchers use TACC supercomputers to simulate orbital debris impacts on spacecraft and fragment impacts on body armor. UT mechanical engineering professor Eric Fahrenthold and his team developed a fundamentally new way of simulating fabric impacts that captures the fragmentation of the projectiles and the shock response of the target. Running hundreds of simulations on TACC supercomputers, he and his students assisted NASA in the development of ballistic limit curves that predict whether a shield will be perforated when hit by a projectile of a given size and speed. The framework they developed also allows them to study the impact of projectiles on body armor materials and to predict the response of different fabric weaves upon impact.