Experimental study on the dynamic response of foam-filled corrugated core sandwich panels subjected to air blast loading

Effective approaches to enhance the blast resistance of sandwich structures with corrugated cores were developed by adopting three different strategies to fill the spaces within cores with polymeric foam. The baseline unfilled panels and foam-filled panels were designed and fabricated, and finally subjected to air blast loading generated by detonating cylindrical explosive. Deformation modes and failure mechanisms of tested panels were investigated. Experimental results demonstrated that the panels with back side filling strategy did not show better blast performance compared with the unfilled panels, even though extra weight was expended due to the addition of foam fillers. The panels with front side filling and fully filling strategies encouragingly appeared to possess desirable blast resistance to prevent severe fracture under high intensity blast loading. This benefit should be attributed to the sufficient crushing deformation of foam fillers and the enhanced buckling resistance of core webs. In addition, a preliminary study has been conducted to investigate the effects of front face thickness on the blast performance of foam-filled panel. Attempts of allocating component mass and filling different material have been made to explore the potential of performance improvement.