On the applicability of Taylor’s theory to the underwater blast response of composite plates

Abstract

The response of a plane, air-backed plate attached to a rigid baffle when subjected to an underwater plane shock wave is investigated numerically and analytically. The numerical simulation takes into account a full three-dimensional fluid model involving water cavitation effects. Different numerical models are employed and validated by comparing against various experimental results from the literature. The validated numerical setup is then used to simulate the underwater shock response of simply-supported, air-backed, carbon-fiber/epoxy rectangular plates attached to a rigid baffle. Simplified analytical solution is developed based on two-step approach. The two stages considered are early-time phase that adapts Taylor’s fluid-structure theory to calculate an impulsive velocity for the plate and long-time phase that involves determining its free oscillation response within linear elastic domain, taking into account the water-added mass effect. Finally, the applicability of the proposed method is investigated by performing different numerical simulations regarding various combinations of peak pressures and decay times, change of aspect ratios, change of materials as well as ply orientations.