Impact Loading of Composite and Sandwich

Structures

SOHRAB KAZEMAHVAZI

Doctoral Thesis
Stockholm, Sweden 2010

TRITA-AVE 2010-58
ISSN 1651-7660
ISBN 978-91-7415-746-8

Kungliga Tekniska Hogskolan (KTH)

Department of Aeronautical and Vehicle Engineering
SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

Akademisk avhandling som med tillst

and av Kungl Tekniska Hogskolan framlagges till
offentlig granskning for avlaggande av teknologie doktorsexamen i Lattkonstruktioner
torsdagen den 8 november kl 10.15 i sal F3, Lindstedtsvagen 26, Kungliga Tekniska
H
ogskolan, Stockholm.
Sohrab Kazemahvazi, autumn 2010

Tryck: Universitetsservice US-AB

iii
In memory of Peter Hogsl
att,
1981-2002

v
Acknowledgments
The work presented in this thesis was primarily carried out at the Department of
Aeronautical and Vehicle Engineering at KTH. A number of detours to University of
Southampton, University of California - Santa Barbara and University of Cambridge
were performed and the Universities together with their Professors are greatly
acknowledged.
Funding for the work conducted in this thesis was provided by The Office of
Naval Research (ONR) through programme officer Dr. Yapa D.S. Rajapakse (Grant
No. N00014-07-1-0344) together with The Swedish Defence Materiel Administration
through Mr. Anders L
onn
o. The financial support is greatly acknowledged.
The are a number of individuals that have contributed to this work and to whom
I am very grateful. In particular, I would like to thank Professor Dan Zenkert for
being a great supervisor, mentor and friend. I guess it is not easy having a generalist
and entrepreneur as a PhD-student, but you always managed to provide me with
great advice, both in my research and in my other undertakings. I would also like
to thank Dr. Vikram Deshpande for his support, help and guidance during my PhD.
It is always very inspiring to work with you.
During the years I have had a number of master thesis students which all helped
me in some way. In particular I would like to thank Mr. Jorn Kiele and Mr. Daniel
Tanner for their great efforts and their contribution to this thesis.
I would like to express my gratitude to all of my colleagues and friends that
helped me in my research. In particular: Anders and Stefan, for teaching me all
about research in those early days as a masters student. Markus, for helping me
with the beautiful lay-out of this thesis. Joonas, for being a great office mate. Zuheir,
for being a great office mate, for his belief in metal structures and his efforts to teach
me all about it. Ylva, for her good suggestions and thoughts which helped improve
the introduction of this thesis. Dr. Benjamin Russell (University of Cambridge) and
Martin Nilsson (FOI), for helping me doing a lot of fun experiments.
Thanks to my entrepreneur colleagues, Andreas Broryd and H
akan Lutz, without
whom I could finish this PhD in half the time, but the experience would have only
been half as good.
Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank my family and my Pantea for
their great support. Especially, I would like to thank my mother who taught me
how to be, think and act.

Sohrab Kazemahvazi

Stockholm in 2010

vii
Abstract
Low weight is one of the most important factors in the design process of high speed
naval ships, road vehicles and aircrafts. Lower structural weight enables the possibility of
down-sizing the propulsion system and thus decrease manufacturing and operating costs as
well as reducing the environmental impact.
Two efficient ways of reducing the structural weight of a structure is by using high
performance composite materials and by using geometrically efficient structures such as
the sandwich concept. In addition to good quasi-static performance different structures
have dynamic impact requirements. For a road vehicle this might be crash worthiness, an
aircraft has to be able to sustain bird strikes or debris impact and a naval ship needs to be
protected against blast or ballistic loading. In this thesis important aspects of dynamic
loading of composite and sandwich structures are addressed and presented in the appended
papers as follows.
In paper A the notch sensitivity of non-crimp fabric glass fibre composites is investigated.
The notch sensitivity is investigated for several different laminate configurations at varying
tensile loading rate. It is shown that the non-crimp fabrics have very low notch sensitivity,
especially for laminate configurations with a large amount of fibres in the load direction.
Further, the notch sensitivity is shown to be fairly constant with increasing loading rates
(up to 100/s).
In paper B a heuristic approach is made in order to create an analytical model to
predict the residual strength of composite laminates with multiple randomly distributed
holes. The basis for this model is a comprehensive experimental programme. It is found
that unidirectional laminates with holes predominantly fail through three failure modes:
global net-section failure, local net-section failure and local shear failure. Each failure mode
can be described by a physical geometric constant which is used to create the analytical
model. The analytical model can predict the residual strength of unidirectional laminates
with multiple, randomly distributed holes with good accuracy.
In paper C and paper D, novel prismatic high performance all-composite sandwich cores
are proposed. In paper C an analytical model is developed that predicts the strength and
stiffness properties of the suggested cores. In paper D the prismatic cores are manufactured
and tested in shear loading and out-of-plane compression loading. Further, the analytical
model is used to create failure mechanism maps to map out the overall behaviour of the
different core configurations. The novel cores show very high specific strength and stiffness
and are potential candidates as cores in high performance naval ship hulls.
In paper E the dynamic properties of prismatic composite cores are investigated. The
dynamic out-of-plane strength of an unit cell is tested experimentally in a gas gun - Kolsky
bar set-up. Especially, different failure mechanisms and their effect on the structural
strength are investigated. It is found that cores with low relative density (slender core
members) show very large inertial stabilisation effects and have a dynamic strength that
can be more than seven times higher than the quasi-static strength. Cores with higher
relative density show less increase in dynamic strength. The main reason for the dynamic
strengthening is due to the strain rate sensitivity of the parent material rather than inertial
stabilisation of the core members.

Dissertation
This doctoral thesis is based on an introduction to the area of research and the
following appended papers:

Paper A
S. Kazemahvazi, D. Zenkert, M. Burman. Notch and strain rate sensitivity of
non-crimp fabric composites. Composites Science and Technology, Volume 69, Issue
6, May 2009, Pages 793-800

Paper B
S. Kazemahvazi, J. Kiele, D. Zenkert. Tensile strength of UD-composite laminates
with multiple holes. Composites Science and Technology, Volume 70, Issue 8, August
2010, Pages 1280-1287

Paper C
S. Kazemahvazi, D. Zenkert. Corrugated all-composite sandwich structures. Part 1:
Modeling. Composites Science and Technology, Volume 69, Issues 7-8, June 2009,
Pages 913-919

Paper D
S. Kazemahvazi, D. Tanner, D. Zenkert. Corrugated all-composite sandwich structures. Part 2: Failure mechanisms and experimental programme. Composites
Science and Technology, Volume 69, Issues 7-8, June 2009, Pages 920-925

Paper E
S. Kazemahvazi, B.P. Russell, V.S. Deshpande and D. Zenkert. Dynamic crush
response of sandwich structures with prismatic composite cores. Manuscript submitted.
ix

x
Parts of this thesis have also been presented as follows:
S. Kazemahvazi, D. Zenkert, M. Burman. Notch and strain rate sensitivity of
non-crimp fabric composites. In Proceedings of the 16th International Conference
on Composite Materials (ICCM-16), Kyoto (Japan), 2007.
S. Kazemahvazi, J. Kiele, D. Zenkert. Tensile strength of UD-composite laminates with multiple holes. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on
Composite Materials (ICCM-17), Edinburgh (UK), 2009.
S. Kazemahvazi and D. Zenkert, The compressive and shear responses of corrugated hierarchical and foam filled sandwich structures. In Proceedings of the 8th
International Conference on Sandwich Structures, Porto, Portugal, 2008.
S. Kazemahvazi, J. Kiele, B.P. Russell, V.S. Deshpande and D. Zenkert, Impact
properties of corrugated composite sandwich cores, 9th International Conference on
Sandwich Structures, Pasadena, CA, USA, 2010.

Contents
I Introduction

The
1.1
1.2
1.3

Need for Lightweight Structures

The Need for Lightweight Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Design of Lightweight Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Impact Protection Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3
4
6
7

Background to Thesis
2.1 Blast and Impact on Naval Ship Hulls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2 Coupled Blast and Impact Loading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3 Sandwich Structures for Improved Blast Performance . . . . . . . . .

11
11
12
13

Ethics in Military Research

19

Objectives

21

Summary of appended papers

5.1 Paper A . . . . . . . . .
5.2 Paper B . . . . . . . . .
5.3 Paper C and paper D .
5.4 Paper E . . . . . . . . .

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Bibliography

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II Appended papers

35

xi

Part I

Introduction

1 The Need for Lightweight Structures

Humans are creative, and more importantly, humans are co-creative. Everyday
billions of great ideas, products, services and long lasting memories are created all
over the world - simply due to human co-creativity. One of the basic needs for
human co-creativity to occur, is the possibility for humans to meet each other, to
interact. Thus, although single individuals can be creative, co-creativeness can only
occur when humans interact. The need for such interaction to occur is the possibility
of transportation. Thanks to our transportation system, we can today cover long
or short distances, quick and easy. Unfortunately, although being the fundamental
ingredient for co-creativeness, transportation occurs at a big cost for you, your
co-creative fellows and the earth. This doctoral thesis in Lightweight Structures
does not only encourage all means of transportation and promote co-creativeness,
but it also provides valuable knowledge on how transportation can be done using as
little resources as possible so that co-creativeness can continue without emptying
your pockets and polluting the earth.

Figure 1.1: Traffic in Stockholm (in courtesy of Stockholm stad)

1.1

S. Kazemahvazi

The Need for Lightweight Design

There are a number of applications where a lightweight structure is beneficial.

Typical examples are different types of vehicles such as aircrafts, cars and ships.
When a vehicle has a low weight, less energy is required to move it and thus it is
possible to reduce the fuel consumption. Reduced fuel consumption does not only
decrease the environmental impact but it also reduces the in-service cost of the
vehicle. Potential cost and fuel savings, that can be made by lowering the structural
weight, have been investigated by Kaufmann [1] for the application aircrafts and
by Stenius [2] for the application of high speed ships. The scope of this thesis is
primarily weight reduction and structural design of naval ships. An introduction to
this topic is given in section 2. In this section, the need for lightweight design is
further exemplified by showing how weight reduction affects the energy consumption
of road vehicles.
Road vehicles cover a major part of the human transportation. Road transportation is primarily an environmental problem within large city areas where the
method of transportation typically involve commuting by car, bus or train. The
photograph in figure 1.1 depicts a typical rush hour traffic scenario just outside the
central parts of Stockholm, Sweden. Statistically, 41 % of the journeys to work are
done by car whereas 32 % are done using public transportation. An average car [3]
on this picture will travel 19 km (single journey to work) at an average velocity of
approximate 25 km/h. Further, 86 % of the cars are only occupied by a single driver
without any passengers. Thus, by looking at the statistics one might ask oneself; is
it really necessary to use a 1500 kg piece of expensive machinery to travel 19 km
alone at a speed of 25 km/h? I think not!

FD
FUh
Facc
FR

Figure 1.2: The main drag forces that are induced to a ground vehicle

There is a very close relationship between the weight of a vehicle and its energy
consumption. Figure 1.2 schematically shows the drag forces that act on a road
vehicle (car, bus, train, bicycle etc). These are the different resistive forces that

Introduction

the vehicle engine need to overcome in order to push the vehicle forward. Typically
there are four important drag forces to take into account; aerodynamic drag, rolling
resistance, inertia due to acceleration of the vehicle and inertia due to uphill
movement of the vehicle. The aerodynamic drag is completely decoupled from the
weight of the vehicle and is coupled to the shape and size of the body as well as its
surface properties. The rolling resistance and inertia forces are however strongly
coupled to the weight of the vehicle. Analytical models which gives approximations
of the described drag forces can be found in [4].
In order to illustrate the effect of weight on energy consumption, three fictive
vehicles have been designed. All vehicles have the same properties (including
aerodynamic properties) and carry a single driver, the only difference is the structural
mass of the vehicles. Small vehicle has a mass of 100 kg (comparable to a moped),
the medium size vehicle has a mass of 400 kg (comparable to a very lightweight
car) and the large size vehicle has a mass of 1500 kg (comparable to a mid-size car).
Figure 1.3 shows the approximate power which is required to accelerate the vehicles
0-50 km/h in 6 seconds on a light uphill slope, a quite common scenario in todays
urban traffic. The small vehicle needs about 3 kW of power whereas the medium
35
29

Required power (kW)

30
25
20
15
9

10
5

0
Small

Medium

Large

Vehicle size

Figure 1.3: The required power to accelerate a vehicle 0-50 km/h on a light uphill slope

and large vehicles need 9 kW and 30 kW of power respectively. This means that one
needs a ten times more powerful engine in a large vehicle, in order to get the same
performance as a small vehicle, and that will of course affect the fuel consumption!
What if one could design a vehicle with a weight of the same order of magnitude as
a moped, but with car reminiscent comfort and safety properties, an ultra lightweight
vehicle? The company Vehiconomics (http://www.vehiconomics.com) did just
this and their ultra lightweight vehicle is called Smite (http://www.mysmite.com).
Human co-creativity will continue.

1.2

S. Kazemahvazi

Design of Lightweight Structures

So far the need for lightweight structures has been justified. The question remains:
how is a structure designed so that the structural stiffness and strength properties
are kept high, but with maintained low structural weight? One way of designing
a lightweight structure is to develop new materials, e.g. new polymer materials
or metal alloys with enhanced properties compared to the existing ones. This is
however a rather costly and time consuming endeavour. Another way is to combine

Face sheet

Face sheet
Core material

Figure 1.4: Schematic drawing of a sandwich plate

two existing materials and create a hybrid material (a composite material) so that
one uses the best properties of both constitutive materials [5]. Fibre reinforced
plastics (FRP) constitute such a family of hybrid materials with very competitive
weight specific strength and stiffness properties compared to traditional metal alloys.
Further FRPs enable the possibility to tailor the material properties since the
load carrying fibres can be distributed in any direction. Another way to develop
a lightweight structure is by designing a geometrically efficient structure. In order
to improve the flexural stiffness and strength of a structure one can use a so called
sandwich design, see figure 1.4. In a sandwich design, two thin, stiff and strong
materials are separated by a thick and lightweight core. The purpose of the core
material is simply to separate the face sheets and transfer the loads between them.
The concept is similar to that of an I-beam, which is a very weight efficient structure,
with the difference that the sandwich structure is continuous. Typical materials that
are used as face sheets in sandwich structures are steel, aluminium, carbon fibre
reinforced plastics and glass fibre reinforced plastics. Traditional core materials are
balsa wood, polymer foams and aluminium honeycombs.
In summary: by choosing the appropriate materials and by designing efficient

Introduction

structural geometries it is possible to get lighter structures with remaining structural

stiffness and strength.

1.3

Impact Protection Requirements

In addition to general stiffness and strength requirements, there can be other types of
requirements on a structure. Examples of such are fire protection, sound insulation,
impact protection and esthetic requirements. Thus, it is not always sufficient to
design a lightweight structure which meet general stiffness and strength requirements,
but other potential requirements must also be fulfilled. This thesis focuses on the
impact protection requirements of lightweight structures, and primarily in the
application of naval ship hulls. The impact protection requirements for naval ship
hulls are described in more detail in section 2. In this section, brief examples of
impact protection requirements for two other types of vehicles are given; a car and
an aircraft.
A car has to carry general structural loads from e.g. wheel suspensions, but
at the same time it needs to be able to protect the passengers in the event of a
collision. Aircrafts are primarily designed for certain in-service load conditions, from
e.g. the wings, but they also need to be able to withstand impact loading events
when subjected to bird strikes or hail storms. In an impact event, the material and
the structure are deformed at higher rates (higher speeds) which potentially could
give a completely different behaviour compared to a quasi-static (low speed) loading scenario. The rate at which a material is deformed is referred to as the strain rate,
 =

d
 = v/L
dt

(1.1)

where  is the strain, v the deformation speed and L the length of the deformed
structure. In order to design a structure for high loading rate events, comprehensive
knowledge of the material and structural behaviour is required. Further, an in-depth
knowledge of the impact loading scenario is also required since these generally are
more complicated than quasi-static loading scenarios.

Crash Worthiness of Cars

The design process of a crash structure for a car is a complex and potentially expensive process. The crash structure of a car can roughly be divided into two main parts,
the protective barrier and the energy absorption zones. The protective barrier is a
safety cell and is supposed to contain the passengers without any large deformations.
Ideally the passenger compartment would deform as little as possible, so that there
is room for the passengers to decelerate without hitting any obstacles. If a structure
does not deform, on contrary, the passengers will be subjected to fatal accelerations.
Due to this, a protective barrier is usually combined with energy absorbing zones,
also called deformation zones. If designed correctly, the energy absorbing structure

S. Kazemahvazi

will start to deform with a predefined maximum load/acceleration. The chosen

maximum acceleration is typically the value that the human body can sustain before
organs and tissues are damaged.
All major car manufacturers today use metals alloys as primary structure in
cars. The high loading rate behaviour of metals are understood quite well and there
are several efficient numerical simulation tools to predict the crash behaviour of e.g.
energy absorption zones and protective barriers of a car. For composite materials
and sandwich structures, however, this is still under development. Not only is there
a need for knowledge about the high strain rate properties of the parent material,
but one also need to understand the different competing energy dissipating failure
mechanisms. Once this is done, it is possible to develop more accurate simulation
tools that will contribute to substantially reduce the cost of the design process
(experiments are costly!).
In this thesis the high strain rate properties of glass and carbon fibre reinforced
plastics are explored and will, together with many other research results, give us a
better knowledge of the dynamic behaviour of composites.

Impact Protection Requirements for Aircrafts

Todays economical and environmental demands have forced the airplane manufacturers to produce lighter aircrafts to reduce the fuel consumption. Already being
relatively geometrical efficient structures, a natural step in reducing the airplane
weight has been the use of hybrid materials. Initiatives such as the Boeing 787
Dreamliner and the Airbus 350XWB are two examples of airplanes that mainly
(>50%) consist of composite materials. Figure 1.5 shows the breakdown of materials
of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Major structural parts of the airplane is built from
composite materials and sandwich structures. As mentioned earlier, airplanes do not

Carbon Laminate
Carbon sandwich
Other composites
Aluminium
Titanium

Figure 1.5: Breakdown of materials used in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner [6]

only have general stiffness and strength requirements, but one also need to consider
impact loading scenarios in the design process of the aircraft. Two examples of

Introduction

impact loading scenarios are soft and hard body impacts. Bird strike is a typical
soft body impact and hail storms and impacts from runway debris are examples of
hard body impacts. These impact loading scenarios are not only a threat for the
flight safety, but also a great cost for the aviation industry. Bird strikes alone costs
the aviation industry more than 1 billion USD dollar each year [6]. According to the
Federal Aviation regulations (25-571), flap structures of large transport airplanes
have to withstand an impact of a 1.81 kg bird at normal operating speeds. During
the past decade numerous research groups have investigated the response of composite and sandwich structures subjected to impact loading [69] and used different
approaches in developing numerical simulation tools. Although some projects report
good correlation between numerical simulations and experiments for specific load
conditions, there are still no reliable tools (material models) for solving generic
impact problems. Another important aspect, in the design process of an airplane, is
the post-impact strength of the structure. One need to ascertain that the damaged
component is able to meet the in-service strength requirements, so the plane can be
brought to rest safely.
In this thesis a novel phenomenological model has been developed that predicts
the residual strength of unidirectional composite laminates with multiple holes. This
model can be used to predict the post-impact strength of e.g. airplane structures
that have been subjected to debris impact or similar.

2 Background to Thesis
2.1

Blast and Impact on Naval Ship Hulls

Naval ship hulls can be exposed to several severe dynamic loading conditions. The
load conditions can be of a global type or a local type. In a global loading condition,
a high intensity pressure wave hits a larger portion of the structure (e.g. slamming
loads, air- and water blasts). In a local loading condition, projectiles or fragments
hit a part of the structure creating damage and/or holes. An introduction to blast
loading of structures is given by Rajendran and Lee [10], Ngo et al [11] and Zhu
and Lu [12]. Generally speaking, a blast scenario can be divided into four stages:
the explosion process, the shock wave propagation in the fluid, the fluid-structure
interaction and the response of the impacted structure.
First an explosion process occurs where rapid chemical reactions converts the
original material into gas at very high temperature and pressure. This creates a
high intensity pressure wave that propagates into the surrounding medium [13]. In
water, the pressure pulse initially propagates at a speed that is three times higher
than the speed of sound in water [10], and then the speed decreases gradually. At
a distance of approximate 20 times the charge radius the pressure pulse stabilises
and propagates constantly at the speed of sound in water. An air explosion is
significantly different from explosions in water, this is mainly due to the differences
in the physical properties of the media. The most important physical properties
that determines the shock wave behaviour is the density, compressibility, velocity of
sound, temperature and ambient pressure of the medium. A schematic view of an
air blast or a water blast wave is given in figure 2.1. The pressure-time response of
an ideal air blast can be described by the Friedlander equation,
p(t) = P0 + Pm [1

t t/td
e
]
td

(2.1)

where P0 is the ambient pressure, t is the instantaneous time, td is the positive

duration of the pressure pulse and is called the waveform parameter which depends
on the peak overpressure, Pm , of the shock wave. For an underwater explosion the
ambient pressure is the hydrostatic pressure. In an air blast, the peak overpressure,
Pm , is generally in the same order of magnitude as the ambient pressure (100 kPa),
whereas in the underwater explosion the peak overpressure is several orders of
11

12

S. Kazemahvazi

Peak overpressure,
Pm

Ambient pressure,
P0

Positive phase
duration

Negative phase
duration

Figure 2.1: Schematic view of the pressure-time history of a blast wave

magnitude larger than the hydrostatic pressure. Therefore the hydrostatic pressures,
in an underwater blast, can be neglected and 2.1 reduces to,

p(t) = Pm et/

(2.2)

where is the time taken by the shock wave to decay to 1/e of the peak value
and Pm is the peak pressure.
Within the scope of this research, the blast and impact properties of naval ships
were investigated in two ways. Firstly, coupled effects of fragment and blast loading
were investigated. This typically occurs when a structure is subjected to multiple
fragment impacts that is followed by a high intensity blast load. Secondly, novel
sandwich core concepts were developed with the aim to improve the blast protection
performance of the structure. In proceeding sections a brief introduction is given to
the research area.

2.2

Coupled Blast and Impact Loading

When an artillery shell detonates, not only a high intensity pressure wave is generated,
but it also produces significant amount of fragments. The fragments, of various
size, travel at high speed and can create patterns of penetration and perforation
damages on the structure. Subsequent to these fragment impact damages the high

Introduction

13

intensity pressure wave will hit the structure and induce large strains. Hence, the
pressure wave hits an already damaged structure. Figure 2.2 shows an example of
a composite plate which has been subjected to fragment impact loading from an
artillery shell and figure 2.3 schematically shows the coupled loading event. The
main question that needs to be investigated is thus: What is the load carrying
capacity of a damaged composite plate, such as the one depicted in figure 2.2, when
subjected to a high intensity blast load?
The coupled effects of blast and fragment loading has previously been investigated
for concrete buildings [1416], but so far little work has been published on coupled
fragment and blast loading of ship hull structures. The problem of coupled blast

30 cm

Figure 2.2: A composite plate which has been subjected to fragment impact damages from
an artillery shell.

and ballistic loading contains a number of different key questions which have been
investigated in this thesis. Example of such questions are,
Is the material strain rate sensitive, i.e. does the strength change with changing
loading rate?
Are composite laminates notch sensitive and does the notch sensitivity change
with loading rate and/or laminate lay-up sequence?
Can damages from fragment impacts be approximated with drilled holes of
similar size?

2.3

Sandwich Structures for Improved Blast Performance

A sandwich structure which is subject to an intense blast (either in air or water)

is imposed to a sudden velocity on the face sheet towards the blast [17]. The
deformation of the sandwich structure can be divided into three stages, shown
schematically in figure 2.4. The first stage is the fluid-structure interaction stage,

14

S. Kazemahvazi

Figure 2.3: Schematic view of a coupled fragment impact and blast loading scenario

during which an exponentially decaying pressure pulse hits the structure and imparts
an impulse to it. Since the duration of the primary shock wave and the time period
of the core crushing is substantially shorter than the response time of the sandwich
structure, the loaded face sheet will accelerate and attain an initial velocity, v0 . The
core and the back face will remain stationary during this stage. During the second
stage, the core material is deformed (preferably crushed) by the advancing face sheet
and thus the front face sheet is decelerated by the core while the core and the back
face sheet are accelerated. At the end of the second stage, the core and the face
sheets have attained a uniform velocity. The final stage of the sandwich response
then comprises of dissipation of the remaining kinetic energy by a combination of
beam bending and longitudinal stretching of the structure (and the accompanied
failure modes). Based on the fundamental stages of deformation described above, the
sandwich core can be designed so that the blast protection performance is increased
(compared to a monolithic structure with the same mass per unit area). There are
essentially two ways of doing this; (i) by increasing the energy absorption during
the core crushing stage or (ii) by increasing the cores ability to sustain longitudinal
stretching.
During the past decade there has been an effort to develop novel core topologies
that have good performance compared to traditional foam cores [1820]. The core
topologies can be divided into two main categories: prismatic cores and lattice truss
cores, see figure 2.5. Examples of prismatic cores are square honeycombs [21, 22],
corrugated cores and diamond configuration cores [2325]. Lattice truss cores
typically consist of pyramidal, tetrahedral, kagome or textile configurations [2630].
The core members of these periodic core configurations are primarily subjected to
axial loading, and thus the predominant mode of failure of the core members is
buckling. Buckling dominated failure is especially seen in core configurations with a
low relative density, i.e. when the core members are slender. In order to increase the
resistance to buckling without adding substantial weight, variants of tubular lattice
truss cores [3133] and hierarchical core concepts [24,34,35] have been developed and

Introduction

15

v0 , I

Stage I

Core

(Fluid structure interaction)

Face sheets

Stage II
(Core crushing)

Stage III
(bending & stretching)

Figure 2.4: Schematic picture of sandwich structure subject to a blast scenario

show significant increase in strength compared to its monolithic counterpart. Figure

2.6 summarises the experimental quasi-static compressive strengths for a majority
of sandwich core materials available in the literature today. It is seen that core
concepts made out of carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP) have the best strength
performance for the entire density range. At low core densities CFRP pyramidal
lattice truss cores outperform all other core configurations. The CFRP square
honeycomb cores and the corrugated hierarchical cores have the best performance
in the intermediate density range, whereas the monolithic corrugated CFRP core
show highest strength for densities above 110kgm3 .
In addition to good quasi-static performance, sandwich structures that are used
in military vehicles or naval ships need to have good resistance to blast and ballistic
loading conditions, as discussed previously. Several studies have investigated the
behaviour of prismatic and lattice truss cores when subjected to ballistics [55,56] and
blast loading [17, 47, 5761]. Most studies report an increase in blast performance
for sandwich configurations compared to monolithic structures. Square honeycombs
cores shows the best out-of-plane performance, corrugated and diamond cores have
high longitudinal stretching performance and lattice trusses have competitive performance at low core densities.
Dynamic loading scenarios of the aforementioned periodic cellular cores differ
from the quasi-static loading case in three fundamental ways that will affect the
load response. First, the constituent material of the structure may show strain rate
dependence. Second, since the cellular cores are buckling dominated, inertial effects
can delay the onset of buckling and/or change the wave length of the buckling mode.

16

S. Kazemahvazi

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

Figure 2.5: Schematic figures of different core topologies [19]. (a) Square honeycomb,
(b) corrugated/diamond core (c) tetrahedral lattice, (d) pyramidal lattice, (e)
kagome lattice and (f) diamond textile core.

Finally, propagating elastic, plastic and bending waves can be transmitted through
the core which can affect the macroscopic properties of the structure. Ferri et
al [62] conducted a comprehensive study on the dynamic behaviour of stainless steel
I-core configurations and found strong inertial influence resulting in a substantial
decrease of the buckling wave length as the loading rate increased. Tilbrook et
al [47] investigated the dynamic crushing of stainless-steel corrugated and Y-core
configurations. Both core topologies showed strong inertial stabilisation as the
loading rate increased, which resulted in substantial increase of the collapse strength
and a decrease of the buckling wave length. At impact velocities below 30 m/s, the
stresses measured at the front and rear faces of the sandwich were approximately
the same. This indicates a state of axial equilibrium as the core collapses. As the
impact speed increased, wave propagation effects played a dominant role and the
measured peak stresses at the front face exceeded that of the rear face. In fact,
the peak stress of the rear face remained approximately constant (and equal to the
low speed impact peak stress), while the peak stress of the front face continued to
increase as the loading rate increased (up to a certain limit).

Introduction

Hierarchical CFRP corrugation

17

CFRP square honeycomb

Monolithic CFRP corrugation

Pyramidal CFRP lattice truss

Figure 2.6: Experimentally measured out-of-plane compression strength of different sandwich core concepts. [2225, 30, 32, 3544, 44, 45, 4554]

Although the dynamic response of metallic lattice truss and prismatic cores
have been thoroughly explored, there has been little research done on the fibre
composite counterpart. In this research the out-of-plane impact behaviour of a
prismatic composite core was explored with a potential future application as a
high performance and multifunctional core in naval ship hulls. Experiments were
performed at quasi-static loading rate, low and high speed impacts. The low- and
intermediate speed impacts resembles a loading scenario of a ship collision and
hull slamming loads, while the high speed impacts simulate blast loading scenarios.
Especially the effects of inertial stabilisation were studied and its effect on the
out-of-plane compressive strength of the core.

3 Ethics in Military Research

Each year billions of dollars are invested in military research which is conducted at
Universities and in private organisations. How does this research benefit civilians
and in what way does it develop humanity? Who will use the research results and,
maybe more important, how will it be used? These are questions I asked myself
before embarking upon my PhD-project. I believe that all science can do good as
well as bad, and maybe the thing that will distinguish the good from the bad is the
application that the end user of the research chooses.
The research done within this thesis is funded by military organisations with
primary applications in military structures. The main purpose of this research is
to improve the blast and impact protection properties of military structures. It is
important to elucidate the fact that the research focuses on protective structures,
i.e. research with the objective of saving lives, and not weapons (which typically
have the objective of eliminating life).
Although a lot of research is primarily intended for military use, history has
given many great civilian spin-offs from military research. One example of such
spin-off is the Internet (Arpanet) which started as an American military research
project. The global positioning system (GPS) was originally also developed by
the US Department of Defence. The primary purpose was to use it as a delivery
system for high precision weapons (missiles). Today the GPS is available for civil
applications and contributes in to saving many lives around the world. Another
example is the modern radar and spin-off products from the radar research.
During the World War II a company named Raytheon Corporation got a contract
from the American Military to perfect and mass-produce the magnetron (a gadget
that produces microwaves) for ground-based, airborne and shipborne military radar
systems. While perfecting the magnetron, the scientist Dr Percy Spencer noticed
something very unusual. As he tested the magnetron he discovered that the candy
bar in his pocket started to melt. This incident intrigued him and he started to
experiment with other food objects and soon he had designed a metal box which
was fed by microwaves - the first microwave oven. By late 1946, Raytheon had filed
a patent proposing that microwaves could be used to cook food. Although this
spin off invention did not save the world, it sure made life easier for a lot of people
and the invention serves as a good example of where a military funded project can
results in something good for civilians.
19

4 Objectives
The main objective of this thesis has been to improve the structural performance of
high speed naval ship hulls. This has been done considering both the dynamic load
conditions (such as blast and ballistic impact) and by improving the quasi-static
performance using novel sandwich cores.
More specifically the objectives have been:
Develop tools for predicting the residual strength of composite panels with
multiple damages.
Investigate the high rate loading behaviour of composite structures and specifically how it affects the notch sensitivity of the structure
Enhance the quasi-static and the blast performance of sandwich structures
using novel core topologies

21

5 Summary of appended papers

Low weight is one of the most important factors in the design process of high speed
naval ship hulls. Lower structural weight enables the possibility of down-sizing the
propulsion system of the ship and thus decrease manufacturing and operating costs
as well as reducing the in-service energy consumption.
Two efficient ways of reducing the structural weight of a ship is by using high
performance composite materials and by using geometrically efficient structures,
such as the sandwich concept. The Visby Class Corvette, figure 5.1 is one example of
an all-composite sandwich naval ship. In addition to low weight, the Visby Corvette
hull is non-magnetic, has good surface flatness and good thermal insulation, which
lowers the radar and infrared signatures.

Figure 5.1: Visby class corvette with a sandwich structure hull consisting of carbon fibre
reinforced vinyl-ester face sheets and PVC foam core (in courtesy of Kockums)

Naval ship hulls also need to have good dynamic loading protection. Example of
dynamic loading events are air and water blasts, ballistic impacts, hull slamming
23

24

S. Kazemahvazi

etc. In this thesis important aspects of dynamic loading of composite and sandwich
structures are addressed and presented in the appended papers as follows.

5.1

Paper A

The main objective with this paper was to investigate the notch sensitivity of
non-crimp fabric glass fibre composites. The notch sensitivity was investigated for
several different laminate configurations at varying tensile loading rate. Notches
were created in the form of drilled circular holes as well as perforation damages from
fragment simulating projectile impacts.
It was shown that the non-crimp fabrics have very low notch sensitivity, especially
for laminate configurations with a large amount of fibres in the load direction.
Further, the notch sensitivity was shown to be fairly constant with increasing
loading rates (up to 100/s). For laminates with a large amount of fibres in the
loading direction, very small difference in residual net-section strength was observed
between laminates with drilled circular holes and laminates with holes generated
from fragment simulating projectile impacts.

5.2

Paper B

In this paper a heuristic approach was made in order to create an analytical model
to predict the residual strength of composite laminates with multiple randomly
distributed holes. The basis for this model was a comprehensive experimental
programme. It was found that unidirectional laminates with holes predominantly
fail through three failure modes: global net-section failure, local net-section failure
and local shear failure. Each failure mode could be described by a physical geometric
constant which was used to create the analytical model. It was shown that the
developed model can predict the residual strength of unidirectional laminates with
multiple, randomly distributed holes with good accuracy.

5.3

Paper C and paper D

In paper C and paper D, novel prismatic high performance all-composite sandwich

cores were developed. In paper C an analytical model was developed to predict the
strength and stiffness properties of the suggested cores. The model was compared to
finite element simulations and showed very good accuracy. In paper D the prismatic
cores were manufactured and tested in shear loading and out-of-plane compression
loading. Further, the analytical model was used to create failure mechanism maps
and map out the overall behaviour of the different core configurations.
The novel cores show very high specific strength and stiffness and are potential
candidates as core in high performance naval ship hulls.

Introduction

5.4

25

Paper E

Within this paper the dynamic properties of the prismatic cores, that were developed
in paper C and paper D, were investigated. The dynamic out-of-plane strength of
an unit cell was tested experimentally in a gas gun - Kolsky bar set-up. Especially,
different failure mechanisms and their effect on the structural strength was investigated. It was found that cores with low relative density (slender core members)
show very large inertial stabilisation effects and have a dynamic strength that can
be more than seven times higher than the quasi-static strength. Cores with higher
relative density show less increase in dynamic strength. The main reason for the
dynamic strengthening is due to the strain rate sensitivity of the parent material
rather than inertial stabilisation of the core members. It was also shown that at
high loading rates ( 3000/s) the failure of the core switches into a progressive fibre
crushing mode rather than dynamic buckling and dynamic micro-buckling.

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Introduction

31

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Division of work between authors

Paper A
Kazemahvazi planned and conducted the experimental programme and the following
analysis. The paper was written by Kazemahvazi with support from Zenkert and
Burman. Burman presented the paper at ICCM16, Kyoto (Japan).

Paper B
Kazemahvazi and Kiele performed the experiments. Kazemahvazi made the analysis
and modelling. Kazemahvazi wrote the paper with support from Zenkert.

Paper C
Kazemahvazi made the analysis and modelling with support from Zenkert. Kazemahvazi wrote the paper with support from Zenkert.

Paper D
Kazemahvazi and Tanner performed the experiments. Kazemahvazi made the
analysis and modelling. Kazemahvazi wrote the paper with support from Zenkert.

Paper E
Kazemahvazi manufactured the specimens. Kazemahvazi and Russell performed
the experiments. Kazemahvazi and Russell made the analysis with support from
Deshpande. Kazemahvazi wrote the paper with support from Zenkert, Russell and
Deshpande.

33

Part II

Appended papers

35