Local damage to Ultra High Performance Concrete structures caused by an impact of aircraft engine missiles

The impact of an aircraft engine missile causes high stresses, deformations and a severe local damage to conventional reinforced concrete. As a consequence the design of R/C protective structural elements results in components with rather large dimensions.Fiber reinforced Ultra High Performance Concrete (UHPC) is a concrete based material which combines ultra high strength, high packing density and an improved ductility with a significantly increased energy dissipation capacity due to the addition of fiber reinforcement. With those attributes the material is potentially suitable for improved protective structural elements with a reduced need for material resources.The presented paper reports on an experimental series of scaled aircraft engine impact tests with reinforced UHPC panels. The investigations are focused on the material behavior and the damage intensity in comparison to conventional concrete. The fundamental work of Sugano et al., 1993a and Sugano et al., 1993b is taken as reference for the evaluation of the results. The impactor model of a Phantom F4 GE-J79 engine developed and validated by Sugano et al. is used as defined in the original work. In order to achieve best comparability, the experimental configuration and method are adapted for the UHPC experiments. With ‘penetration’, ‘scabbing’ and ‘perforation’ all relevant damage modes defined in Sugano et al., 1993a and Sugano et al., 1993b are investigated so that a full set of results are provided for a representative UHPC structural configuration.

Research highlights▶ Experimental series on UHPC panels subjected to aircraft engine impact. ▶ Improved ballistic limit of fiber reinforced UHPC in comparison to conventional R/C. ▶ Detailed investigation of failure mechanisms of fiber reinforced UHPC panel.