Mechanical behaviour of sacrificial sandwich panels

Abstract

The main objective of this thesis is to conduct a numerical study of aluminium foam core sacrificial sandwich panels in order to understand how different parameters affect the energy absorption when subjected to various blast loads and low-velocity impact. The sacrificial sandwich panels are made up of an aluminium foam core, and face sheets on each side. The face sheets have been kept constant throughout the study, while the thickness and density of the foam core has been varied.

The numerical model is established in LS-DYNA to replicate laboratory experiments in a DropTower and in the SIMLab ShockTube. A parameter study was conducted to investigate the effect of varying foam core thickness and density. Laboratory experiments were conducted to validate the results of the parameter study. The results of this validation showed that the blast loaded model replicated the correct trends, while there was large problems with the model of the low-velocity impact.

Foam core sacrificial sandwich plates show good potential for absorbing energy from blast loads. Especially low-density foam shows potential for limiting the deformation while absorbing the energy. For low-velocity impact, further work is needed to conduct a proper parameter study, but experiments show promise of good results for low-density foam.