Performance of meta concrete panels subjected to explosive load: Numerical investigations

Research on strengthening and retrofitting of concrete structures against explosive loading has recently received much attention. This paper proposes a new type of reinforcement for concrete panels to enhance their blast-resistant capacity. The reinforcement structure is naturally optimized with continuous nonself-intersecting surfaces, known as triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS)-primitive scaffold. A numerical model is developed to investigate the performance of TPMS-primitive reinforced concrete panels against blast loading. The results are validated by experimental data from the literature on a traditional reinforced concrete slab. The concrete slabs reinforced with one, two, and four layers of TPMS-primitive unit cells are designed and examined, while a quarter of the panel is simulated to reduce the computational cost. A constitutive model that considers the strain-rate effect is employed to capture the rate-dependent impulsive behavior of the proposed panels. The numerical results indicate significant enhancements in damage resistance and substantial reductions in deflection of the concrete reinforced panels when the TPMS-primitive scaffold replaces the rebar lattice. The proposed reinforcement with multiple layers of unit cells retains high efficiency through parametric studies, while changes in the shell thickness of the reinforcement scaffold have limited effects on filtering blast waves.