Air Blast Loading of Cellular Media

Published

July 1, 2007

Author(s)

George A. Gazonas, Joseph Main

Abstract

Motivated by recent efforts to mitigate blast loading using energy-absorbing materials, this paper investigates the mechanics of uniaxial crushing of cellular sandwich plates under air blast loading using analytical and computational modeling. This model is also applicable to the crushing of cellular media in blast pendulum experiments. In the analytical model, the cellular core is represented using a rigid, perfectly-plastic, locking (RPPL) idealization. The front and back faces are modeled as rigid, with pressure loading applied to the front face and the back face unrestrained. Predictions of this analytical model show excellent agreement with explicit finite element computations, and the model is used to investigate the influence of the mass distribution between the core and the faces on the response of the system. Increasing the mass fraction in the front face is found to increase the impulse required for complete crushing of the cellular core but also to produce undesirable increases in back-face accelerations. Optimal mass distributions are investigated by maximizing the impulse capacity while limiting the back-face accelerations to a specified level. It is shown that a larger critical reflected impulse can be sustained in a graded core relative to a homogeneous core, prior to complete crushing, particularly for structures consisting of large core and face-sheet mass fractions. If one, however, is attempting to minimize back-face accelerations to a fixed level in order to enhance the survivability of electronic components subjected to ballistic shock, then the maximum reflected impulse that can be sustained is greater in the homogeneous core than in a core with a linearly increasing yield stress.

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of the International Conference on Experimental Mechanics | 13th | 2007 |

Conference Dates

July 1-6, 2007

Conference Location

Alexandroupolis, 1, GR

Conference Title

International Conference on Experimental Mechanics

Pub Type

Conferences

Keywords

low buildings, wind loading, wind tunnel testing

Citation

Gazonas, G. and Main, J. (2007), Air Blast Loading of Cellular Media, Proceedings of the International Conference on Experimental Mechanics | 13th | 2007 |, Alexandroupolis, 1, GR (Accessed October 31, 2024)