Performance of foam-filled kirigami corrugated sandwich panels as sacrificial cladding against blast loads

Abstract

In this study, the blast mitigation performance of kirigami corrugated (KC) panels filled with polyurethane foam as sacrificial cladding was investigated. Firstly, the effect of filling polyurethane (PU) foam on the energy absorption capacity and deformation mode of KC units was investigated by quasi-static compression. Numerical model was then built and validated. Following this, blast simulations were conducted to investigate the protective effectiveness of the aluminum foam panel, KC panel, and foam-filled KC panel as cladding for comparison. The blast loading effects on the structure without protection were also calculated and compared with different types of cladding. The key evaluating parameters, including peak transmitted load to the protected structure, energy absorption, and the crushed depth of the front plate, were used to evaluate the mitigation performance under various blast loads. The numerical results demonstrated the superior mitigating performance of foam-filled KC sandwich structures under various blast loading scenarios. The proposed foam-filled KC panel shows a higher energy absorption capacity than aluminum foam panels. The foam-filled KC panels with various densities of PU foam under different blast loads were also conducted to investigate its influence on blast mitigation performance. It was found that the second peak in the transmitted load can be reduced for KC panels with a higher density of the foam, as it leads to higher energy absorption capacity and later densification of the core against blast loads.