Flexible, light-weight wire ring-net barriers are used to stop falling rocks serving as
protection for villages and roadways in mountainous regions. The steel wire-ring nets are difficult to model because of their complex geometry. The rings consist of a single steel wire strand wrapped together multiple times, and are connected to one another in a chainmail fashion to form the net. Their geometry and behavior represent a challenge to finite element modeling. This paper presents quasi-static and impact explicit FE simulation results of wire-ring net tests using an approach which relies on the general contact algorithm available in the FE code Abaqus. This
approach allows a better description of the physics involved in impact problems related to rock falls. The model accounts for many complex physical processes: high-speed impact, contact with sliding friction, damage initiation and evolution, and strain-rate dependent material behavior. These physical aspects have been taken into account and the parameters involved have been calibrated with real test data. We demonstrate that the modeling approach of the ring net improves the accuracy and predictive value of the simulations.