Response Analysis of Blast Impact Loading of Metal-foam Sandwich Panels

The study of the structural blastworthiness is aimed to design efficient structures to protect the personnel inside the armor vehicle. Designing blastworthy structures requires not only high strength material, but also the capability of the structure to absorb the blast impact energy. The use of the sandwich construction with martensitic steel as the armor material and metallic foam as the energy absorber is promising to obtain the lightweight blast impact resistant structure. Recent development in military vehicle application has shown that the high strength material alone is not sufficient to protect the military personnel. This is due the fact that many injury and fatality of the military personnel still occurred even though the military vehicle still intact in the event of the blast impact event. Therefore, it is needed to design structures which have the capability to protect the vehicle subjected to the blast impact loading and to reduce the injury and fatality risk of the military personnel. The present blastworthy structural model with sandwich metal-foam plate construction is examined using non-linear finite element. The structural responses in terms of the displacement, velocity and acceleration is studied. Blast impact load is modeled using blast load equation by defining the charge and standoff distance. The sandwich structure is modeled as the shell and solid elements, using the Johnson-Cook and Crushable Foam material constitutive models. Parametric studies were carried out by varying panel thickness, specific material and foam density for certain blast load and impact stand-off distance. The objective of the parametric study is to analyze the dynamic responses of the sandwich structure with respect to the displacement, velocity, absorbed energy, and acceleration. The result obtained indicate that the metal-foam sandwich construction can be developed as the blastworthy component with high structural efficiency. The efficiency of metal foam to protect against blast load is shown by the absorbed energy respons. © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.