Experimental and numerical investigation on dynamic behaviors of glass fiber reinforced polymer plates under explosion loadings

Abstract

In this paper, field blast tests and numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the damage mechanism of glass fiber reinforced polymer plates under explosion loadings. Six specimens were fabricated and tested, and the effects of explosive mass and standoff distance on the failure mode of glass fiber reinforced polymer plates were studied. The experimental result showed that the damage mode of the glass fiber reinforced polymer plates under near-field explosion was mainly scabbing on the top surface, tensile crack on the back surface, accompanied by a small amount of spalling. Crater damage occurred on the top surface of plates, the bottom surface generates spalling damage, and a through hole was formed in the center of the plate under contact explosions. Furthermore, the finite element (FE) model of glass fiber reinforced polymer plates under contact explosion was established using the Arbitrary-Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) method. The effects of explosive mass on the damage mechanism of the glass fiber reinforced polymer plates were investigated. Thereafter, the dimensional analysis was used to analyze this physical model to obtain the functional relationship between explosion equivalent, plate thickness and fracture diameter. The present work can provide helpful references for the blast-resistant design of protective structures.