Blast-resistance behaviors of sandwich-walled hollow cylinders with aluminum foam cores

Based on the verified effectiveness of the finite element method used here, the dynamic responses of two different hollow cylinders with equal masses were studied using LS-DYNA under three different blast loadings. One of the two cylinders had a sandwich wall with A3 steel face-sheets and close-celled aluminum foam core, and the other had a monolithic A3 steel wall. In addition, the blast-resistance behaviors of five different sandwich-walled hollow cylinders were studied. The results demonstrated that the sandwich-walled hollow cylinder is superior to the one with monolithic solid wall under the same blast loading, either in deformation or in energy absorption; for the sandwich-walled hollow cylinder, the thickness of its inner face-sheet should not be bigger than that of its outer face-sheet; and only in this condition, the global deformation of the sandwich-walled hollow cylinder can not only be reduced, but also the advantage of the energy absorption of foam core can be taken.