Dynamic behavior of single curved fiber-metal hybrid lamina composite shells under blast loading-experimental observations

In the current study, the dynamic response of single curved fiber-metal hybrid lamina composite (FM-HLC) shells under blast loading was experimentally investigated. The influence of explosive mass and distance, the weave pattern of fiber-metal hybrid lamina, and the radius of curvature was analyzed. The experimental results show that the deformation modes of curved FM-HLC shells under blast are similar to that of metal shells when failure is absent. After failure happens, severe delamination only occurs at the site of damage region rather than extending to other area. This strongly demonstrates that FM-HLC shells have better anti-delamination performance than traditional FMLs when subject to blast loads. For different weave patterns, the global deformation of FM-HLCs decreases with the increase of longitudinal reinforcement level. When the radius of curvature increases from 250 mm to infinity (flat panel), the permanent deflection of the structure gradually increases. Meanwhile, the "counter-intuitive behavior " and "local reverse snap buckling " are observed in the experiments. This work not only provides a strategy for blast resistance design of FM-HLCs, but also offers a good reference for understanding the response of orthotropic panels/shells under blast impact.