THE INFLUENCE OF PREFORMED HOLES ON THE DYNAMIC RESPONSE OF BLAST LOADED ALUMINUM PLATES

In this paper, the dynamic response of Aluminum plates with predrilled holes subjected to different intensities of blast loading is studied both experimentally and numerically as to imitate the case where fragments strike and perforate the plates before the load pressure arrives. The blast loading is applied using an Explosive Driven Shock Tube (EDST) [10-12] which ensures a uniformly distributed blast wave on the test specimens. Experiments were carried out for different sizes, positions, and numbers of the predrilled holes in the plates positioned at the end extremity of the tube. Special focus is dedicated to investigate the influence of these parameters on the dynamic response and failure characteristics of plates via the Digital Image Correlation technique (DIC). Numerical simulations were performed in the finite element code LS-DYNA to recreate the plate deformation and the observed phenomena seen in the experiments.