The blast response of sandwich composites with bi-axial in-plane compressive loading

Abstract

The in-plane compressive loading in the ship hull structures during their whole service life will likely change the dynamic behavior of these structures under transverse blast loading. In the present study, the dynamic behavior of E-glass Vinyl Ester composite face sheet / foam core sandwich composites with bi-axial in-plane compressive loading were investigated under a transverse blast loading. A special test fixture which enables bi-axial in-plane compressive loading on the specimens was designed prior to transverse shock wave loading generated by a shock tube apparatus. Blast tests are carried out for three levels compressive loading. A high-speed back-view 3-D Digital Image Correlation (DIC) system is utilized to acquire the real time deformation of the sandwich composites. The real time deformation and post mortem analysis were carefully conducted to study the failure mechanisms. The results show that the in-plane compressive loading induces the buckling and failure in the front face sheet. This mechanism highly reduces the blast resistance of the sandwich composites.