CSIR-Advanced Materials and Processes Research Institute (AMPRI), Council of Scientic and Industrial Research (CSIR), Bhopal 462 064, India
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, New Delhi 110 016, India
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 11 December 2013
Received in revised form
10 November 2014
Accepted 17 November 2014
Available online 26 November 2014
The present investigation examines the response of the aluminum cenosphere syntactic foam core
stiffened and unstiffened structures subjected to blast load. The blast is applied using blast load equations available in LS-DYNA by dening the charge and standoff distance to analyze the structures under a
particular blast load. The dynamic response of the sandwich structures is studied in terms of quantitative
assessment, which mainly focuses on the peak central point displacement of the back-sheet (opposite to
the explosion) of the sandwich structures. The analysis is carried out with an objective of understanding
the effects of the foam thickness, strain rate, and the stiffener congurations on the response of sandwich
structure to the blast load. The results obtained indicate that the provision of the stiffeners and foam core
considerably improves the blast resistance as compared to both, the unstiffened panels with foam core
and without using syntactic foam core.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Blast
Dynamic response
Metal foam
Sandwich structure
Steel
Stiffeners
1. Introduction
Recent terrorist attacks on government, commercial, private and
strategically important buildings all around the world have
highlighted concerns about their safety and performance against
blast induced loadings. As terrorism is becoming more prevalent
throughout the world, blast resistant structures are required to
protect the personnel and the facilities from the particular blast
induced loading for which these structures are designed. Blast
resistant structures are primarily constructed of pre-cast and
cast-in-place concrete or steel frames with the use of sandwich
structures more recently. In the past, polymeric foams, honeycombs
and metallic foams have been developed and used as the core of
sandwich structures for application in blast resistant construction.
Use of sandwich structures with weak and light core has gained
momentum due to their high energy absorption, lightweight and
high specic stiffness. Hence, understanding the behavior of blast
loaded sandwich structures is essential for successful protection of
the personnel and the facilities with the developments of new
metallic foams. Further, a detailed investigation into the
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: mdgoel@rediffmail.com (M.D. Goel), matsagar@civil.iitd.ac.in
(V.A. Matsagar), akg51us@yahoo.co.in (A.K. Gupta).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijimpeng.2014.11.017
0734-743X/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Fig. 1. Compressive stress-strain behavior of the ACSF at different strain rates for
RD 0.722.
135
136
Table 1
Foam material properties and blast scenario considered.
Type of foam
Foam relative
density
Modulus of
elasticity, E (GPa)
l (MPa)
a2 (MPa)
Plateau stress,
sp (MPa)
Foam strain
rate (/s)
TNT, W (kg)
Standoff distance,
R (m)
Aluminum Cenosphere
Syntactic Foam (ACSF)
0.722
22
411.9
1253
86.31
814.4
731
121
1.26
0.82
1.52
110
168
192
0.001
10
1400
1.5
300 MPa [28]. The steel face- and back-sheets along with stiffeners
are modeled using elasticeplastic material model, i.e. MAT_024
(MAT_PIECEWISE_LINEAR_PLASTICITY) of LS-DYNA. This is an
elasticeplastic material model, and stress-strain behavior can be
adapted by dening the tangent modulus or by dening the curve
of effective plastic stress vs. effective plastic strain which is equivalent to true stress vs. true strain in case of uniaxial stresses [29]. In
numerical simulation, tangent modulus is used to dene the stressstrain behavior. The various input parameters required to be
dened in this material model are computed from the quasi-static
material testing.
The foams are dened using material model i.e. MAT_154
(MAT_DESHPANDE_FLECK_FOAM) developed by Deshpande and
Fleck [30]. In accordance with the Deshpande-Fleck foam model,
the yield stress function (F) of the foam material is dened as,
F se sy
(1)
sy sp l
"
#
e
1
a2 ln
eD
1 e=eD b
(2)
r
eD ln f
r0
(3)
137
Fig. 5. (a) Numerical model of aluminum foam sandwich in LS-DYNA, (b) Comparison
of central point displacement time history, and (c) validation using numerical and
experimental results of Karagiozova et al [11].
138
Fig. 7. Central point displacement time histories of SFP-ACSF (P1) and SSFP-ACSF (P2eP11) panels for RD 0.722 and strain rate 0.001/s.
Pt Pr cos2 q Pi 1 cos2 q 2 cosq
(4)
139
Fig. 8. Central point displacement time histories of SFP-ACSF (P1) and SSFP-ACSF (P2eP11) panels for RD 0.722 and strain rate 10/s.
numerical research [38,39]. In the rst part, a steel plate experimentally tested in DSTO Australia (Defense Science and Technology
Organization) is used to validate the present numerical model [38].
In the reported investigation [38], results of the acceleration,
pressure loading, and displacement for a xed at steel plate subjected to explosive induced blast load has been presented. A series
of 1200 mm 1200 mm and 5 mm thick mild steel plates were
bolted to a heavy steel frame using 24 high tensile bolts with an
effective exposed size 1000 mm 1000 mm of the plate. To apply
the blast load, a sphere of Pentolite weighing 250 gm was detonated centrally using an exploding bridge wire detonator with
standoff distance varied from 250 mm to 500 mm as shown in Fig. 3
[38]. The result of this experimental test data (only for 500 mm
standoff distance) is used to validate the FE simulation carried out
140
Fig. 9. Central point displacement time histories of SFP-ACSF (P1) and SSFP-ACSF (P2eP11) panels for RD 0.722 and strain rate 1400/s.
141
Fig. 10. Central point displacement time histories of SFP-ACSF (P1) and SSFP-ACSF (P2eP11) panels for RD 0.722 and strain rate 1400*/s.
tf 150 mm
0.01578
0.00383
0.00311
0.01331
0.01509
0.00394
0.02092
0.00627
0.00311
0.01412
0.00325
tf 100 mm
0.02240
0.00652
0.00392
0.01981
0.01714
0.00555
0.02179
0.01035
0.00403
0.01884
0.00786
tf 50 mm
tf 150 mm
0.01547
0.00372
0.00302
0.01327
0.01495
0.00384
0.02084
0.00616
0.00306
0.01391
0.00319
0.01914
0.00460
0.00356
0.01543
0.01179
0.00478
0.02011
0.00765
0.00358
0.01690
0.00371
tf 100 mm
tf 50 mm
0.02224
0.00790
0.00395
0.01964
0.01682
0.00559
0.02163
0.01021
0.00394
0.01861
0.00813
0.01547
0.00372
0.00302
0.01327
0.01495
0.00384
0.02084
0.00725
0.00306
0.01391
0.00319
tf 150 mm
tf 150 mm
0.02224
0.00793
0.00395
0.01964
0.01682
0.00559
0.02163
0.01021
0.00394
0.01867
0.00813
0.01547
0.00372
0.00302
0.01327
0.01495
0.00384
0.02084
0.00614
0.00306
0.01391
0.00307
P1
P2
P3
P4
P5
P6
P7
P8
P9
P10
P11
tf 100 mm
0.02224
0.00793
0.00395
0.01964
0.01682
0.00559
0.02163
0.01021
0.00394
0.01867
0.00813
0.01914
0.00460
0.00356
0.01543
0.01179
0.00478
0.02011
0.00765
0.00358
0.01690
0.00371
tf 50 mm
tf 100 mm
0.01914
0.00460
0.00356
0.01543
0.01179
0.00478
0.02011
0.00765
0.00358
0.01690
0.00358
tf 50 mm
Plate/panels
nomenclature
Table 2
Peak central point displacements of SFP-ACSF (P1) and SSFP-ACSF (P2eP11) with different thicknesses and stiffener congurations.
0.01933
0.00468
0.00365
0.01577
0.01210
0.00488
0.02024
0.00790
0.00369
0.01710
0.00372
142
143
Fig. 11. Internal energies for SFP-ACSF (P1) and SSFP-ACSF (P2eP11) panels, RD 0.722, foam strain rate 0.001/s.
for three thicknesses of the foam core (i.e. tf 50, 100, and 150 mm)
with the considered strain rates for foam, face- and back-sheets. It
is observed that the peak central point displacement is signicantly
affected by the stiffener conguration as compared to the variation
in the strain rate. When the strain rate effects are considered for
both the sandwich materials, i.e. face- and back-sheet and the foam
materials, it results in enhancement of peak central point
displacement in comparison with the other combinations considered in the present investigation. The lowest central point
displacement is observed to be 3.02 mm for P3 conguration irrespective of strain rates considered herein for the ACSF cores. The
peak central point displacements of all the combinations of ACSF
thickness and strain rates are reported in Table 2. From the table, it
can be observed that the introduction of the foam results in higher
response reduction except for the panel with circular stiffener (P7)
for all the strain rates of the foam with 100 mm and 150 mm
thicknesses of the foam considered herein.
Further, it is also observed that the central point displacement
decreases with the increase in the foam thickness for the ACSF
foams. With the introduction of the stiffeners, the central point
displacement decreases signicantly in all the congurations as
compared to the SFP only (i.e. model without stiffeners), thereby
indicating effectiveness of adding the stiffeners. Moreover, it can be
noted that for achieving higher response reduction, the provided
stiffener should pass through the region experiencing higher
deection and reach the panel boundaries with all other parameters kept the same.
Further, it is also observed for the SSFP that it is not only the
stiffener congurations that govern the response but also the type
and thickness of the foam does signicantly affect the response
144
Fig. 12. Kinetic energies for SFP-ACSF (P1) and SSFP-ACSF (P2eP11) panels, RD 0.722, foam strain rate 0.001/s.
145
Fig. 13. Kinetic and internal energies for SSFP-ACSF (P3) panels for front sheet, foam core and back sheet (i.e. stiffened sheet).
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
146
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