On the Fluid-Structure Interaction Effects of Plated Structures Subjected to Blast Loading - An Experimental and Numerical Investigation

Abstract

An experimental and numerical investigation using a new shock tube facility to study potential fluid-structure interaction (FSI) effects on thin aluminium plates are presented. The shock tube is capable of recreating a loading similar to that of an unconfined far-field airblast, and works as an easily controllable alternative to explosive detonations when studying the dynamic response of structures subjected to blast loading. The numerical simulations are performed using finite element (FE) discretization for both the structure and fluid subdomains, and available techniques for FSI (i.e. arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian and embedded methods) in the FE code Europlexus. An uncoupled FSI approach is compared to the coupled approaches in an attempt to investigate potential interaction effects. The numerical results are finally compared to experimental data, in terms of pressure and displacement measurements, to validate their reliability.