Tearing of metallic sandwich panels subjected to air shock loading

Feng Zhu, Guoxing Lu, Dong Ruan and Dongwei Shu

Abstract

This paper presents a computational study for the structural response of blast loaded metallic sandwich panels, with the emphasis placed on their failure behaviours. The fully-clamped panels are square, and the honeycomb core and skins are made of the same aluminium alloy. A material model considering strain and strain rate hardening effects is used and the blast load is idealised as either a uniform or localised pressure over a short duration. The deformation/failure procedure and modes of the sandwich panels are identified and analysed. In the uniform loading condition, the effect of core density and face-sheets thicknesses is analysed. Likewise, the influence of pulse shape on the failure modes is investigated by deriving a pressure-impulse (P-I) diagram. For localised loading, a comparative study is carried out to assess the blast resistant behaviours of three types of structures: sandwich panel with honeycomb core, two face-sheets with air core and monolithic plate, in terms of their permanent deflections and damage degrees. The finding of this research provides a valuable insight into the engineering design of sandwich constructions against air blast loads.

Key Words

sandwich panel; blast loading; numerical simulation; P-I diagram; failure modes.

Address

Feng Zhu: Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, John Street, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia Guoxing Lu: Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, John Street, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798 Dong Ruan: Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, John Street, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia Dongwei Shu: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798

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