Underwater impulsive response of sandwich structure with multilayer foam core

Abstract The coupling between fluid-solid interaction and structural response is a crucial factor in understanding the resistance of sandwich structures to underwater blasts. In this study, we present a theoretical model that predicts the dynamic response of multilayer foam core sandwich beams subjected to underwater impulses. We carried out a time-scale intercoupling analysis by considering the compressible core in both incident impulse and structural response. In the incident impulse coupling phase, the one-dimensional fluid-structure interaction in terms of cavitation evolution is conducted to obtain the incident pressure profile. A four inter-stages response model is proposed for further analyze the structural response coupling phase and its coupling with core strength. Explicit finite element calculations are performed to verify the theoretical results in terms of the velocity profile, transverse deflection, and core compression. The results suggest that the interaction between the four stages of the dynamic response is significantly influenced by the impulsive intensity and core strength, and the sandwich beam does not undergo all the four stages. The equivalent core strength used in the theoretical analysis is confirmed accurate to predicts impact resistance of the corresponding graded core sandwich beam, which is inferior to the sandwich beam with uniform cores, despite having the same areal mass.