The influence of material type on the response of plates to air-blast loading

• Plates made from aluminium alloy, steels and composites were subjected to air-blast loading.
• Equivalent areal mass plates were tested.
• Dimensionless analysis showed a linear relationship between displacement and impulse up to the point of rupture.
• No correlation between rupture impulse and material strength or ductility was found.
• The rupture point varied with specific energy to tensile fracture, found from tensile tests.

This article presents results from an experimental investigation into the influence of material properties on the response of plates subjected to air-blast loading. The failure of mild steel, armour steel, aluminium alloy and fibre reinforced polymer composite plates were investigated experimentally by detonating disks of plastic explosive at small stand-off distances. Permanent mid-point displacement increased linearly with increasing impulse for each material type, up to rupture. At higher charge masses, the mild steel plates exhibited ductile tensile rupture, while the armour steel plates (which ruptured at the same impulse) exhibited a more brittle type of failure. The aluminium alloy plates exhibited signs of melting and spraying radially outwards, resulting in material loss in the plate centre followed by rupture at higher impulses. The fibre reinforced polymer composite showed evidence of fibre fracture at lower impulses than the other equivalent mass materials. Non-dimensional rupture impulse was not found to correlate with tensile strength or material ductility, but was found to increase with increasing specific energy to tensile fracture (obtained from quasi-static tensile tests). Hence, the energy absorption capacity of the materials obtained from simple tensile tests could provide an approximate indication of their blast performance.