Abstract
Nowadays, the safety of structures exposed to blast loads receives considerable attention. It is important to be sure that the designed structure is capable to resist impact events without excessive damage to itself or its occupants. Protecting structure from blast hazard drives researchers to adopt sacrificial layers. These layers consist of Lightweight sandwich structures due to their high stiffness-to-weight ratio. This paper numerically investigates the effectiveness of using new core topologies for sandwich structures in blast mitigation. Three panels with new core configuration were investigated: ribbon (RCS), longitudinal tubular (LTCS), and vertical tubular cores (VTCS). The hydro-code program (Autodyn) supported by the finite element program (Ansys) is adopted to study the response of the structure under the impact of blast load. The accuracy of the FE models was verified using available experimental results in the literature. The results show that the developed finite element model can be reliably exploited to simulate the dynamic behaviour of the sandwich structure. Blast mitigation parameters were evaluated in order to assess the behaviour of each core. Results revealed that both of RCS and VTCS attained high level of protection compared with the other configurations.