Blast impact response of aluminum foam sandwich composites

Abstract

Military and civilian structures can be exposed to intentional or accidental blasts. Aluminum foam sandwich structures are being considered for energy absorption applications in blast resistant cargo containers, ordnance boxes, transformer box pads, etc. This study examines the modeling of aluminum foam sandwich composites subjected to blast loads using LS-DYNA software. The sandwich composite was designed using laminated face sheets (S2 glass/epoxy and aluminum foam core. The aluminum foam core was modeled using an anisotropic material model. The laminated face sheets were modeled using material models that implement the Tsai-Wu and Hashin failure theories. Ablast load was applied using the CONWEP blast equations (*LOAD_BLAST) in LS-DYNA. This paper discusses the blast response of constituent S2-glass/epoxy face sheets, the closed cell aluminum foam core as well as the sandwich composite plate.