Experimental study of water tank under impulsive loading

The performance of stainless steel water tank subjected to impulsive loading was experimentally studied in this paper. The gas gun was utilized to activate the projectile with high impact velocity. The activated projectile then impinged the impact transfer plate which pressed the airbag behind it. The inflated airbag between the impact transfer plate and water tank was adopted to transfer the impulsive loading from impact transfer plate to the water tank. The ultra-thin pressure sensors were placed between the airbag and water tank to record the pressure imposed onto the water tank and the potentiometers were attached at the back of water tank to record the displacement histories. The water tanks with two different front and rear plate thicknesses were investigated. In addition, the same water tank with and without filled water was compared to study the water effects on the response of water tank under impulsive loading. Besides the experimental studies, the FE method was adopted to reproduce the experiment and improve the current test method. Finally, the experimentally verified FE models were further used to study the water effects in reducing the deformation of water tank under blast loading.