Experimental and numerical investigations on laser-welded corrugated-core sandwich panels subjected to air blast loading

• Air-blast experiments of laser-welded corrugated-core sandwich panel were performed.
• The results are compared with fully-coupled numerical simulations by using Autodyn.
• Deformation/failure modes of corrugated core sandwich panel were obtained.
• Effects of face and core sheet thickness on the blast performance are discussed.

Experimental investigations on the laser-welded triangular corrugated core sandwich panels and equivalent solid plates subjected to air blast loading are presented. The experiments were conducted in an explosion tank considering three levels of blast loading. Results show that the maximum deflection, core web buckling and core compaction increased as the decrease of stand-off distance. Back face deflections of sandwich panels were found to be nearly half that of equivalent solid plates at the stand-off distances of 100 mm and 150 mm. At the closest stand-off distance of 50 mm, the panel was found to fracture and fail catastrophically. Autodyn-based numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the dynamic response of sandwich panels. A good agreement was observed between the numerical calculations and experimental results. The model captured most of the deformation/failure modes of panels. Finally, the effects of face sheet thickness and core web thickness on the dynamic response of sandwich panel were discussed.