Effect of blast wave on lightweight structure performance

Abstract

The use of explosives to attack vehicles has been increased during the last few years. The terror attacks lead to death of innocent people. The armored vehicles should be protected from explosives attacks using lightweight sandwich structure.In this study, the protection system against blast effect is highlighted using composite structures to protect vehicles. The response of the light composite structure is studied using 3-D finite element analysis (FEA). The blast field test is conducted and used to verify the 3-D numerical model. The composite structure strengthened by aluminum foam (ALF) is used to protect the bottom of the armored vehicle against the blast wave propagation. The ALF is used to fill the space at the sandwich structure as a light weight material.This study presents a comparison between the results obtained by both the reviewed field blast tests and the FEA to validate the accuracy of the 3-D finite element model. The effects are expressed in terms of displacement-time history effect on the sandwich steel panels as the explosive wave propagates. The results obtained by the reviewed field blast tests have a good agreement with those obtained by 3-D numerical model. The ALF improves the performance of the sandwich structure under the impact of blast loading. The light weight sandwich structure could be used as a mitigation system to protect the bottom of the armored vehicles against blast hazard.