Behaviour of sandwich panels subjected to intense air blast – Part 1: Experiments

Abstract Tests that investigate the inelastic response of blast-loaded sandwich structures, comprising mild steel plates and aluminium alloy honeycomb cores, are reported. The “uniform” loading was generated by detonating a disc of explosive and directing the blast through a tube towards the target. Localised blast loading was generated by detonating discs of explosive in very close proximity to the test structure. The sandwich panels responded in a more efficient manner to the uniformly distributed loading, and hence the majority of the paper is concentrated on uniform loading response. The honeycomb sandwich results are compared to test results on structures with air as the core. The failure modes and interaction between the components are discussed. Three phases of interaction are identified for each sandwich structure, based upon deformation, contact, crushing and tearing responses of the sandwich components. The compromise between load transfer through the core and improved energy absorption is discussed.