ANSTO using big data to help keep Aussie soldiers safe

Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) computers and big data modelling techniques are being used to help keep Australian soldiers in the field safe.

Michael Saleh, a member at ANSTO’s Institute of Materials Engineering and a PhD candidate at UNSW, is involved in a close collaboration with the Defence Materials Technology Centre and industry partner Thales Australia to develop high-performance armour materials for land vehicles. Saleh has been working since 2009 on structural analysis of materials in extreme environments using computational modelling.

“We are concerned with making vehicles safer for members of the Australian Defence Forces by studying the potential impacts of blasts from improvised explosive devices (IEDs), landmines and ballistic impacts from firearms,” he said.

This involves investigating high strain material deformation and failure modelling using complex computational techniques known as finite element analysis.

These techniques enable Saleh to capture and predict the behaviour of multiple components of an event such as a blast, and ascertain the effects of the event on a vehicle and its occupants.

“It gives us a good understanding of the properties of a material and its behaviour under specific conditions,” he said. “Although they have substantial expertise in defence science and engineering, our collaboration brought to DMTC the rapid development of useful modelling capabilities.”

By capturing the behaviour of a system on a computer, it is possible to reduce the need for expensive and complicated experiments, he said.

“Ideally you need validation, whether it comes from analytical models or an experiment, computer modelling greatly complements experiments.”

The collaboration with the Defence Materials Technology Centre has been in place for seven years and is set to continue for another three.

Image courtesy of Michael Coghlan under CC