The performance of metal sandwich plates under impulsive blast loads is compared to that of solid plates made of the same material and having the same weight. Three core geometries are considered: pyramidal truss, square honeycomb and folded plate. Plates of infinite length and clamped along their sides are subject to uniform impulsive load. The momentum impulse is applied to the face sheet towards the blast in the case of the sandwich plate, while it is distributed uniformly through the thickness of the solid plate. Large impulses are considered that are sufficient to produce lateral plate deflections more than 10% of the plate width. Fracture is not considered; the plates are assumed to have sufficient ductility to be able to sustain the deformations. A limited study of weight optimization is carried out for each of the core types with respect to the respective geometric parameters, including core and face sheet thickness, core member aspect ratios and relative density. A well-designed sandwich plate can sustain significantly larger blast impulses than a solid plate of the same weight. If the blast medium is water, fluid-structure interaction can reduce the momentum imparted to a sandwich plate by almost a factor of two relative to that imparted to a solid plate of the same weight, and, consequently, the relative benefit of the sandwich plate is significantly enhanced over its solid counterpart. r

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The question motivating the present study is whether metal sandwich plates with su ciently strong cores are able to sustain substantially larger blast loads than monolithic solid plates of the same material and total mass. Circular plates clamped at their edges are considered under blast loads large enough to produce substantial de ections. The material is elastic-perfectly plastic. Material strain-rate dependence and fracture are neglected. A dynamic ÿnite element formulation for elastic-plastic solids is employed to analyze the plate response. Uniformly distributed blast impulses are considered. As a basis for comparison, complete results are obtained for solid plates for both zero-period and ÿnite-period impulses. Similar computations are carried out for a set of sandwich plates having tetragonal truss cores. The potential for superior strength and energy absorbing capacity of the sandwich plates is demonstrated compared with solid plates having the same mass. The importance of both the strength and energy absorbing capacity of the core are highlighted for superior blast resistance. Proposals for further research are made. ?

We recently proposed a theory of mechanism-based strain gradient (MSG) plasticity to account for the size dependence of plastic deformation at micron-and submicronlength scales. The MSG plasticity theory connects micron-scale plasticity to dislocation theories via a multiscale, hierarchical framework linking Taylor's dislocation hardening model to strain gradient plasticity. Here we show that the theory of MSG plasticity, when used to study micro-indentation, indeed reproduces the linear dependence observed in experiments, thus providing an important self-consistent check of the theory. The effects of pileup, sink-in, and the radius of indenter tip have been taken into account in the indentation model. In accomplishing this objective, we have generalized the MSG plasticity theory to include the elastic deformation in the hierarchical framework.

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SUMMARYSquare honeycombs are effective as cores for all-metal sandwich plates in that they combine excellent crushing strength and energy absorption with good stiffness and strength in out-of-plane shear and in-plane stretch. In applications where sandwich plates must absorb significant energy in crushing under intense impulsive loads, dynamic effects play a significant role in the behaviour of the core. Three distinct dynamic effects can be identified: (i) inertial resistance, (ii) inertial stabilization of webs against buckling, and (iii) material strain-rate dependence. Each contributes to dynamic strengthening of the core. These effects are illustrated and quantified with the aid of detailed numerical calculations for rates of deformation characteristic of shock loads in air and water. A continuum model for high rate deformation of square honeycomb cores is introduced that can be used to simulate core behaviour in large structural calculations when it is not feasible to mesh the detailed core geometry. The performance of the continuum model is demonstrated for crushing deformations.

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