A systematic design procedure has been developed for analyzing the blast resistance of clamped sandwich beams. The structural response of the sandwich beam is split into three sequential steps: stage I is the one-dimensional fluid-structure interaction problem during the blast loading event, and results in a uniform velocity of the outer face sheet; during stage II the core crushes and the velocities of the faces and core become equalized by momentum sharing; stage III is the retardation phase over which the beam is brought to rest by plastic bending and stretching. The third-stage analytical procedure is used to obtain the dynamic response of a clamped sandwich beam to an imposed impulse. Performance charts for a wide range of sandwich core topologies are constructed for both air and water blast, with the monolithic beam taken as the reference case. These performance charts are used to determine the optimal geometry to maximize blast resistance for a given mass of sandwich beam. For the case of water blast, an order of magnitude improvement in blast resistance is achieved by employing sandwich construction, with the diamond-celled core providing the best blast performance. However, in air blast, sandwich construction gives only a moderate gain in blast resistance compared to monolithic construction.

Issue Section:
Technical Papers
Keywords:
densification, density, dynamic response, bending, compressive strength, buckling, yield strength, shock wave effects, plastic deformation
Topics:
Deflection, Density, Design, Fluid structure interaction, Impulse (Physics), Water, Dynamic response, Compression, Diamonds, Shock waves
1.
Taylor, G. I., 1963, “The Pressure and Impulse of Submarine Explosion Waves on Plates,” The Scientific Papers of G. I. Taylor, Vol III, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK pp. 287–303.
2.
Ashby, M. F., Evans, A. G., Fleck, N. A., Gibson, L. J., Hutchinson, J. W., and Wadley, H. N. G., 2000, Metal Foams: A Design Guide, Butterworth Heinemann, London.
3.
Deshpande
,
V. S.
, and
Fleck
,
N. A.
,
2001
, “
Collapse of Truss Core Sandwich Beams in 3-Point Bending
,”
Int. J. Solids Struct.
,
38
(
36–37
), pp.
6275
–
6305
.
4.
Sypeck
,
D. J.
, and
Wadley
,
H. N. G.
,
2001
, “
Multifunctional Microtruss Laminates: Textile Synthesis and Properties
,”
J. Mater. Res.
,
16
(
3
), pp.
890
–
897
.
5.
Deshpande
,
V. S.
, and
Fleck
,
N. A.
,
2003
, “
Energy Absorption of an Egg-Box Material
,”
J. Mech. Phys. Solids
,
51
(
1
), p.
187
187
.
6.
Xue, Z., and Hutchinson, J. W., 2003, “
A Comparative Study of Blast-Resistant Metal Sandwich Plates,” Int. J. Impact Eng., to appear.
7.
Cole, R. H., 1948, Underwater Explosions, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
8.
Swisdak, M. M., 1978, “Explosion Effects and Properties—Part II: Explosion Effects in Water,” Technical Report, Naval Surface Weapons Center, Dahlgren, VA.
9.
Smith, P. D., and Hetherington, J. G., 1994, Blast and Ballistic Loading of Structures, Butterworth Heinemann, London.
10.
Qiu, X., Deshpande, V. S., and Fleck, N. A., 2003, “
Finite Element Analysis of the Dynamic Response of Clamped Sandwich Beams,” Eur. J. Mech. A/Solids, 22, pp. 801–814.
11.
Symmonds, P. S., 1954, “Large Plastic Deformations of Beams Under Blast Type Loading,” Proceedings of the Second U.S. National Congress of Applied Mechanics, pp. 505–515.
12.
Jones
,
N.
,
1971
, “
A Theoretical Study of the Dynamic Plastic Behavior of Beams and Plates With Finite Deflections
,”
Int. J. Solids Struct.
,
7
, p.
1007
1007
.
13.
Jones, N., 1989, Structural Impact, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
14.
Belytschko, T., 2003, private communication.
Copyright © 2003
 by ASME
You do not currently have access to this content.