Structural response of monolithic and multi-layered circular metallic plates under repeated uniformly distributed impulsive loading: An experimental study

Abstract

A series of 112 experiments were conducted to investigate the response of monolithic and multi-layered metallic plates under repeated uniform impulsive loading up to five times. 15 various testing groups were considered to study the effects of different charge masses, layering configurations, layering arrangements, layer thicknesses, and stand-off distances on the central deflection of single-, double-, triple-layered and triple-layered mixed plates made of aluminum alloy and mild steel materials. The results showed that the triple-layered mixed configuration made of thick aluminum middle and front plates and thin mild steel plate has the best performance compared to other tested configurations from the 1st to 5th loading cycle while the triple-layered steel plate has the poorest performance at the 1st and 2nd loading cycle. Also, the triple-layered mixed configuration with thin mild steel back and front layers showed the poorest blast performance after the 2nd cycle. Additionally, empirical design formulae were proposed to predict the central deflection of monolithic and multi-layered plates under repeated impulsive loading based on new dimensionless numbers.