‘Light-weight impact and blast resistant materials’

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Dr Graham McShane
• Friday 11 November 2011, 15:00-16:00
• Engineering Department - **LR6**.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Lorna Everett.

Improving the resistance of materials to dynamic loads such as impact and blast, but without adding excessive weight, poses a challenge for a number of military and civilian structural applications. The first part of the talk will discuss the combination of metals and polymers in laminated composites in order to increase resistance to impact perforation by rigid indenters. The influence of the polymer and metal properties, projectile geometry, layer thicknesses and layer arrangement will be discussed. It is found that a polymer coating on the impacted face of a light-weight metallic plate can significantly enhance impact energy absorption, with laminate configurations outperforming heavier metal plates. The findings may find application in light-weight impact damage tolerant construction materials or polymer retro-fit coatings for protecting existing structures against impact perforation. The second part of the talk will discuss the addition of nano-scale fillers (such as carbon black, or nano-clay) to polymers in order to enhance resistance to impact loads. The characteristics of these polymer nano-composites will be assessed as the mode of deformation and strain rate is altered. The final part of the talk will address materials for blast mitigation. Sandwich structures with metallic cellular cores show potential as light-weight, blast resistant materials. During blast loading, a large velocity can be imparted to the front face sheet, resulting in the core undergoing high rates of compression. Numerical results will be presented showing the regimes of dynamic compressive collapse of metallic lattice structures which might be used as sandwich panel cores. The influence of the collapse regime on the forces exerted on the face sheets, which is important for the blast resistance of a panel, will be shown.

This talk is part of the Engineering Department Structures Research Seminars series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Cambridge University Engineering Department Talks
• Cambridge talks
• Centre for Smart Infrastructure & Construction
• Civil Engineering Talks
• Computational Continuum Mechanics Group Seminars
• Engineering Department - **LR6**
• Engineering Department Structures Research Seminars
• Featured lists
• Interested Talks
• School of Technology
• Trust & Technology Initiative - interesting events
• bld31

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.