Blast Impact on Aluminum Foam Composite Sandwich Panels

Sandwich aluminum foam structures are being considered for energy absorption applications, crashworthiness, protection of transformer housings, and structural safety. Blast loading is one such phenomenon that is a potential threat to such structures. This study examines LS-DYNA modeling for aluminum foam sandwich composites subjected to blast loads. The sandwich composite was designed using polymer composite facesheets and aluminum foam as core. The core was modeled using material model 126 (*MAT_MODIFIED_HONEYCOMB). The facesheets were modeled using material model 59 (*MAT_COMPOSITE_FAILURE_SOLID_MODEL) and material model 161 (*MAT_COMPOSITE_MSE). 1 point corotational solid element formulation was used for the core and constant stress solid element formulation was used for the facesheets. LS-DYNA implementation of CONWEP blast equations (*LOAD_BLAST) was used to apply the blast load. The box design was evaluated using simulation and iterated until similar performance was achieved. The results were used to predict the modes of failure and energy absorption phenomenon. The simulation was also performed for different dimensions of box having different curvatures. The paper discusses details of the LS-DYNA simulation work and the parametric studies for the aluminum foam sandwich constructions.