Experimental and numerical investigation of circular plates failure due to shock loading

Design of structures under dynamic loading is a demanding subject in engineering design since conventional static failure criteria are unable to deal with structures under transient loading. This work is a contribution to this significant phenomenon to investigate the response and failure of circular plates to shock loading. An experimental rig has therefore been designed to achieve the target. A series of experiments has then been carried out to investigate the circular plates failure under shock loading using a shock tunnel. A nonlinear transient analysis of plates under shock loading has also been performed using ANSYS finite element code in order to introduce a failure criterion for these specific conditions. The shock load has been chosen to be above the static design pressure to investigate the effects of shock load and its duration on the plate failure. A critical curve is presented to determine the critical shock loading and its duration for circular plates. The relations between the transient pressure loading, its duration and the fundamental frequency of the circular plates are also explored. It is indicated that the value of the shock load on structures may exceed the static design pressure without structural failure. Both experimental work and numerical analyses suggest that the design criteria for structures under dynamic loading me more flexible than those under static loading in which no freedoms in deviation of any simple yield criterion exist. It is concluded that using a proper failure criterion for any specific problem can increase safe working region of the structures which leads to economical design of structures under pressure pulse loading.