Analysing Blast and Fragment Penetration Effects on Composite Helicopter Structures
Abstract
Sandwich structures become increasingly important as structural parts in helicopters. This does not only have effect on the way of construction but also on the vulnerability of the helicopter. The last decades the threat of helicopters has increased in military circumstances. Consequently the helicopters will be exposed to weapon effects like high blast loads and fragment impact more frequently. Moreover the blast load becomes more important because the threat comes closer to the target. At TNO different blast and fragment response models are available for metal structures. However little is known about the blast and fragment performance of sandwich panels. To be able to determine the damage of these structures due to blast loads and fragment impact it will be necessary to extend the present vulnerability methods for composite structures. A combination of numerical simulations and experiments were performed for both blast loading and fragment impact on composite structures. The numerical results show good agreement with experiments but must be improved for some applications. The numerical tools make it possible in future to simulate vulnerability of composite structures without the need of large and expensive experiments.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA453041
Entities
People
- C. Van't Hof
- J. M. Luyten
- K. Herlaar
- M. J. Van Der Jagt