Friday, January 07, 2007, MEAD

Structural Response of Metal Sandwich Plates under Shock Loading
 

Ashkan Vaziri

Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences,
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138
 

Metal sandwich plates have been considered recently for designing blast-resistant structures. Several studies have highlighted the potential advantage of these light-weight structures compared to traditional designs comprised of monolithic solid plates. The complex structural response of sandwich plates under high intensity loading, which involves both material and geometric nonlinearity, is governed by localized phenomena, including dynamic buckling and micro-inertial resistance associated with core crushing. In this talk, various aspects of structural performance of all-metal sandwich plates will be discussed along with extensions to multifunctional sandwich plates with polymeric foam-filled cores. The mechanisms underlying the structural response and fracture of these structures under high intensity loading will be illustrated, and some insight into the design optimization of these structures will be provided.