Sandwich Structures With Bio-Inspired Viscoelastic Optimized Suture Face Sheets for Blast Mitigation

In this paper, the performance of a novel bio-inspired face sheet in mitigating the effects of blast loading is investigated. The new design of the face sheet consists of an optimized bio-inspired suture structure sandwiched between two aluminium plates. The suture profile is obtained by performing structural optimization using Genetic Algorithm, wherein the dynamic responses obtained using a novel viscoelastic finite element formulation are used. The performance of this optimized suture-based face sheet is experimentally tested in a vertical shock tube which validates the results obtained using commercial finite element software Abaqus. The hybrid sandwich structure composed of an aluminium honeycomb core sandwiched between the developed face sheets is evaluated numerically for its blast resistance performance. The study shows that the proposed face sheet design, not only reduces the stresses in the face sheets significantly, but also reduces the core stresses compared to conventional aluminium face sheet–based sandwich structures. Several parametric studies are presented for axial and transverse shock loading on this hybrid sandwich structures that give more insight into their wave propagation characteristics.