Effect of boundary support conditions on impact behavior of silicone pin‐reinforced polymer sandwich composite structure

Abstract Present study investigates the effect of pinned and fixed boundary conditions on deformation characteristics of silicone rubber pin‐reinforced polymer sandwich composite under rigid plate impact. These boundary conditions represent two different structural applications of the sandwich which consists of a soft polyurethane foam core, embedded with four silicone pins for reinforcement, placed in between two hard acrylic faceplates. Compression test were conducted on foam at different strain rates and the results obtained for quasi‐static case was later used in numerical analysis for procedure validation and impact simulation using finite element analysis software ABAQUS. Results for deformation, contact force generated and stresses induced are obtained. Quasi‐static compression results show good conformity between experimental and numerical results for foam. Impact results show that both boundary conditions have negligible effect on deformation and contact force but pinned condition produces much higher stresses than fixed one. The study also found that pin‐reinforcement significantly affects the impact behavior and the post‐impact recovery.