The response of fibre metal laminate panels subjected to uniformly distributed blast loading

This paper presents the results of blast loading tests on fully clamped square fibre metal laminate (FML) panels. The FMLs were constructed from aluminium alloy, a polypropylene interlayer and co-mingled glass fibre/polypropylene woven cloth. The spatial loading distribution is approximated as uniform and was generated by detonating annuli of explosive. Observations from blast experiments performed on panels with different stacking configurations are reported and the response compared to similar locally blast loaded FML panels. Multiple debonding, plastic deformation, internal buckling and metal tearing were all observed. In non-dimensional form, the data from both the localised and uniform blast tests collapsed onto one line for the front face displacement and another line for back face displacement.