The blast response of composite and fiber-metal laminate materials

The blast behavior of composite materials is a subject of growing importance, generally due to the ever-present threat of subversive activity. The aircraft industry will employ composite materials more frequently in the future as they are lightweight, offer superior fatigue resistance, life cycle cost savings, fuel efficiency and (in some cases) improved impact properties when compared with monolithic metals, such as aluminum alloy. However, little is known about their response to blast loading. This chapter provides a brief introduction to the characteristics of explosions and demonstrates that a careful assessment of the blast loading scenarios for each aircraft design is required, as the loading is complicated by the degree of confinement, geometric variations, and the multiplicity of potential explosion scenarios. Various blast protection paradigms are reported, with the containment strategy being most relevant for aircraft design at present. Recent experimental and numerical investigations concerning the blast behavior of aerospace composites are reported. The response of fiber-reinforced polymers, polymeric sandwich panels, and multilayered fiber-metal laminate structures are discussed in the context of the aerospace environment.