vulnerability and efficiency of composite structure under BLAST effects – BLAST

The behavior of the composite structures subjected to the high speed accidental, hostile or military loadings is a domain with the multiple challenges for the safety as well in the military domain, for the protection of the fighter on the external theaters of operation in Light Armored Vehicles (LAV), as in the civil domain, on the behavior of the new aircrafts with a composite fuselage. The considered requests result from effects of the shock waves and from blast generated by the explosion of military or home-made loads still called Improvised Explosive Devices (IED). The BLAST project (for vulnerability and efficiency of the composite Structures under BLAST effects), including the Center of Gramat of the Atomic Energy Commission and Alternative Energies (CEA Gramat), the Clément Ader institute (ICA) and the Small Company Composites Expertise & Solutions (CES), aim at proposing a methodology allowing to simulate, within the framework of the fast dynamics, the behavior of two technological evaluators in composite. It is about parts of limited dimensions allowing restoring representative conditions of the blast effect which would undergo the material within the real structure for two cases. In the first case (technological evaluator n°1), it is a question of simulating the effect of a shock wave and blast on a composite structure in having representative singularities of an element of composite fuselage of a modern aircraft as the A350. The exercise consists in demonstrating, thanks to an approach combining experiments and numerical simulations that it is possible to estimate the consequences of a malicious act on this type of structure. In the second case (technological evaluator n°2), it is a question of putting the bases of a concept of innovating protection in composite material. This protection addresses the floors of Light Armored Vehicles (LAV) subjected to the blast effects of the Improvised Explosive Devices (IED).