Study on a Two-Stage Computational Model for the Mechanical Behavior of Metal Ring Nets in Flexible Rockfall Barriers

Metal ring nets are the core interception components of flexible rockfall barriers, and the accurate characterization of their mechanical behavior is essential for the safety assessment of the whole system. To overcome the limitations of existing computational models in reflecting the large-deformation states of the nets and the activation of energy dissipators, systematic uniaxial tension tests and puncture tests were first carried out on five specifications of ring nets (R8 to R19, 30 specimens in total). The results reveal a two-stage deformation feature (an initial low-force tensioning stage followed by a stiffness-hardening rapid-rise stage) and a parallel-superposition load-carrying mechanism under both loading cases. The experimental data were then normalized by dividing the force by the number of steel wires and non-dimensionalizing the displacement, on the basis of which a unified piecewise two-stage constitutive model, consisting of a linear tensioning segment and a power-hardening segment, was established to describe the response up to the peak point; the tensile and puncture cases share the same model form and are distinguished only by different parameters (fitting coefficient of determination R² not lower than 0.97, with mean values of 0.98 and 0.983, respectively). A full-scale numerical model of the overall structure was subsequently established using LS-DYNA, in which the two side spans adopt the tensile constitutive model and the middle impact span adopts the puncture constitutive model. The model was verified against a 1500 kJ full-scale impact test. The computed time histories of the support-rope forces, the activation states of the energy dissipators (pressure-relief rings), the maximum interception deformation (computed 8.23 m versus measured 8.8 m, with a relative error of about 6.5%) and the energy-dissipation distribution of the pressure-relief rings (average relative error of about 5.2%) all agreed well with the experimental results. The proposed two-stage computational model can therefore accurately reflect the force and deformation states of the ring nets in the actual structure and correctly describe the transmission of the impact force and the activation of the energy dissipators, providing a reliable theoretical basis for the refined design of flexible rockfall barriers.