The Damage to Thick Steel Plates by Local Contact Explosions

Abstract

The paper presents the damage results of thick steel plates subjected to local blast loading using experimental and numerical approaches. Three steel plates with a thickness of 17 mm under the local contact explosion of trinitrotoluene (TNT) explosives were tested, and the damaged parts of the steel plates were scanned using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). ANSYS LS-DYNA software was used to simulate the damage results of the steel plate. By analyzing and comparing the experimental results with the numerical simulation results, the influence law of the TNT acting on the steel plate, the damage mode of the steel plate, the reliability verification of the numerical simulation, and the criterion for judging the damage mode of the steel plate were obtained. Results show that the damage mode of the steel plate changes with the changes in the explosive charge. The diameter of the crater on the surface of the steel plate is mainly related to the diameter of the contact surface between the explosive and the steel plate. The fracture mode of the steel plate in the process of generating cracks is a quasi-cleavage fracture, and the process of generating craters and perforations in the steel plate is a ductile fracture. The damage mode of the steel plates can be divided into three types. The numerical simulation results have minor errors and high reliability, and numerical simulation can be used as an auxiliary tool for experiments. A new criterion is proposed to predict the damage mode of the steel plates under contact explosion.

Blast Effects on Hyperloop’s Cylindrical Thin-Shell Structures

“…Other blast loading mitigation design improvements can be simulated in future studies to compare what methods are the most effective at reducing the failure of hyperloop infrastructure. Examples could include redesigning the hyperloop tube by adding composite isotropic shell configurations into the internal thin shell to improve its capacity to withstand pressure loading [14,[53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60]. As previously mentioned, modelling different blasts using the LOAD_BLAST_ENHANCED keyword, such as hemispherical or surface blasts, could be investigated to see how deformation varies.…”

Numerical Investigation on Anti-Explosion Performance of Non-Metallic Annular Protective Structures

“…Unlike traditional metal or concrete materials [4][5][6][7], the structurally weak materials represented by fibers have shown great promise for internal blast mitigation. The structurally weak materials can convert the blast energy into their own kinetic and internal energy and are almost completely converted into small soft particles after loading, which have virtually no secondary damage compared to rigid materials such as metals [8].…”