The Blast Load Response of Honeycomb Sandwich Panels Y. Chi Supervisors: Prof G. N. Nurick, Dr G. S. Langdon Blast Impact Survivability Research Unit (BISRU), University of Cape Town

Slide 2 © CSIR Background Passenger Aircraft Safety Lockerbie Plane Crash

Slide 3 © CSIR General Aim In search of better protection against blast

Slide 4 © CSIR Specific Aims of This Study To determine the response of honeycomb sandwich panels to uniformly distributed air-blast loading. To investigate the effect of: Core thickness Plate thickness Core material Core configuration

Slide 5 © CSIR Structure Under Investigation Front face plate Back face plate Aluminium honeycomb core

Slide 6 © CSIR Presentation Structure Blast test configurations Various panel configurations have been proposed and tested Quasi-static testing on the components Characterise the materials (mild steel plates and aluminium honeycombs) Blast testing on the sandwich panels Concluding remarks

Slide 7 © CSIR Experimental Setup

Slide 8 © CSIR Panel Configurations

Slide 9 © CSIR Dharmasena et al, 2007, in press Background Knowledge

Slide 10 © CSIR Background Knowledge Dharmasena et al, 2007, in press

Slide 11 © CSIR Honeycomb Material Characterisation Jones, Structural impact

Slide 12 © CSIR Honeycomb Material Characterisation

Slide 13 © CSIR Background Knowledge

Slide 14 © CSIR Focus of Today

Slide 15 © CSIR Single-1.6: 1.6mm plate 29mm h/c

Slide 16 © CSIR Single-1.6: 1.6mm plate 29mm h/c Front plate deflection – 5.3Ns to 29.2Ns

Slide 17 © CSIR Mid-point deflection of the face plates and the honeycomb cores Single-1.6: 1.6mm plate 29mm h/c

Slide 18 © CSIR Single-1.6: 1.6mm plate 29mm h/c at the center

Slide 19 © CSIR Honeycomb Material Characterisation Densification

Slide 20 © CSIR Honeycomb crush distance graph Densification = 29.2Ns Single-1.6: 1.6mm plate 29mm h/c

Slide 21 © CSIR Single-1.6: 1.6mm plate 29mm h/c Back plate deflection – 5.3Ns to 36.8Ns

Slide 22 © CSIR g 1.6mm 11g 1.0mm Effect of Plate Thickness

Slide 23 © CSIR mm vs 1.0mm Plate Thickness Mid-point deflection of the face plates

Slide 24 © CSIR mm vs 1.0mm Plate Thickness Honeycomb crush distance graph Densification

Slide 25 © CSIR Mid-point deflection of the face plates 1.6mm vs 1.0mm Plate Thickness Densification

Slide 26 © CSIR For the effect of plate thickness: A honeycomb sandwich panel with thinner face plates will have higher front face plate deformation. This means the core will densify at a lower impulse and transmit larger forces to the back plate. This is generally undesirable. This, in conjunction with the effect of the core thickness, provides a detailed investigation of the response of honeycomb sandwich panels to blast loading. Further details will be available in my MSc thesis. Concluding Remarks