Close-in explosion performances and damage evaluation of bamboo fiber reinforced laminates

Abstract

Three types of laminated bamboo plates (LBPs), namely flat-pressed one-way plate (PR), flat-pressed orthogonal plate (PC), and side-pressed one-way plate (PT), were designed and manufactured to investigate their mechanical responses under quasi-static and blast loadings. The experimental results show that the LBPs have excellent blast resistance. In-field explosion experiments clearly reveal the damage patterns of the LBPs with scaled distance changing from 2.052 m/kg1/3 to 0.054 m/kg1/3. Plates PR and PT have five damage patterns, which are slightly scorched, matrix cracking, fiber breakage, spalling and outbreak-crash, respectively. Plates PC eliminate the matrix cracking damage pattern through balancing the anisotropy by orthogonal structure. After explosion, the LBPs still maintain good elasticity, structural integrity and high residual bearing capacity. The residual bearing capacity of plates PR-1, PT-1 and PC-1 repetitively suffered seven explosions is decreased to 58.8 %, 42.6 % and 68.7 % of the average bearing capacity of the reference plates, respectively. It is concluded that orthogonal and side-pressed structures are conducive to enhance the load carrying capacity of the LBP.