Mitigating Risk of Confined Explosion via Lightweight Sacrificial Cladding

A confined explosion inside a critical facility may lead to the total paralysis of pertinent operations. Practical solutions to mitigate such risk include lightweight sacrificial cladding, which can be deployed as a physical barrier to protect high importance (i.e., critical) facilities from potential explosions. More specifically, sandwich panels have the potential for high energy dissipation at a relatively low cost, which makes them suitable for multiple cladding applications against a range of blast-threat scenarios. To investigate the effectiveness of sandwich panels against such threats, the results of an experimental study carried out by the authors are presented herein. The study includes 18 cold-formed steel sandwich panels featuring two core configurations selected on the basis of the resistance and modes of failure of nominally identical panels previously tested under quasistatic loading. The dynamic response of each panel configuration to the detonation of six different charges of composition C-4 at a constant standoff distance is analyzed in this paper. The test results are presented in terms of response histories, peak displacements, and observed modes of failure, while the damage levels exhibited by each panel are related to the response limits specified in design standards currently adopted in North America for the blast protection of buildings. Considerations of energy absorption and scalability suggest that panels with a unidirectional core configuration may be preferable for blast risk mitigation.