PSI - Issue 14

C.Jayarami Reddy et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 14 (2019) 634–641 C.Jayarami Reddy/ Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2018) 000–000

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Fig. 5. Deformation profiles of target plates subjected to 142 gms of explosive blast at 400mm SoD

Fig. 6. Deformation profiles of target plates subjected to 142 gms of explosive blast at 300mm SoD 3.3 Comparison of deformation of H-glass and E-glass composites The final displacement of H-glass composites is higher than the E-glass composites at both 400mm and 300mm SoDs. For H-glass composites, at both SoDs, the important deformation mode is the large displacement or large in elastic deformation. The damage modes such as matrix cracking and fibre breakage are found to be insignificant. In E-glass composites, at higher SoD, the predominant damage modes are matrix cracking and fibre breakage and the displacement is inconspicuous. But at the smaller SoD, the primary damage mode is increased displacement or large in-elastic deformation and the extent of matrix cracking and fibre breakage appeared to be very small. The damage modes of the composites presented here, are similar to mode I (large in-elastic deformation) failure of clamped square metallic plates when subjected to the explosive blast reported by Nurick GN., et al. (1995, 1996) and K. Ramajeyathilagam et al. (2004). Considering the marginally higher displacements of H-glass composites than their E-glass counterparts, absence of matrix cracking and fibre failure along with the added advantage of their lower density, H-glass composites may offer to be a potential blast mitigating composite. 4. Conclusions The deformation mechanisms of H-glass/epoxy and E-glass/epoxy composites, subjected to small scale explosive blast loads were experimentally investigated. The change in pressure profiles with change in SoD was studied and reported. The effect of varying the SoD on the deformation modes of the composite panels was also studied by examining them after blast tests. The experimental results showed that the magnitude of the pressure increases with the reduction in SoD. Final displacements of both the composites were increased with increase in