Experimental and numerical investigation of the dynamic response of water-covered plates subjected to gas mixture blast loading

To provide a basis for the design of water-protective explosion containment vessels, the dynamic response of circular water-covered and bare plates subjected to blast loading was studied experimentally and numerically in this paper. Firstly, a laboratory experimental apparatus for blast loading with combustible gas was independently developed. A series of experiments were conducted to comparatively study the dynamic strain response at the center of circular plates with varying thicknesses, under conditions both with and without water cover. Subsequently, finite element numerical models were established to further analyze the maximum equivalent strain and maximum displacement at various locations on the water-covered plates. The results show that the presence of water exerts a pronounced damping effect on the attenuation of vibrations, not only significantly reducing the maximum response peak, but also effectively reducing the vibration times at high strains on the plate. The added mass effect of water is relatively limited within the elastic vibration range. In addition, the blast resistance of water decreases with increasing structural stiffness. The Bessel function and quadratic function models established according to the numerical simulation results can effectively predict the maximum displacement distribution of the plate along the radius direction, which provides strong theoretical support for the design of the explosion containment vessel.