Dynamic response of square sandwich panels with stagger-layered honeycomb cores under intensive near-field air blast loading.

• A core stagger layered strategy is proposed for the honeycomb sandwich panels. • Experiments indicate availability of the strategy and accuracy of the numerical simulation. • For a given mass and geometrical size, the increase of layer number and cell size consolidate this effect. • The strategy provides a well choice to improve protective capacity of sandwich panels under air blast loading. Metallic honeycomb sandwich panels have been widely used in energy dissipation due to large plastic deformation under impact/blast loading. In this paper, the dynamic response of a honeycomb sandwich panel with stagger-layered core under intensive near-field air blast loading is investigated. Comparative experiments are conducted for stagger-layered and typical honeycomb sandwich panels with the same geometrical size and mass. Numerical simulation has been undertaken based on the experiments. Numerical results coincide well with experimental results on the deformation/failure modes and center-point deflection of back face sheet. The influence of layer number as well as the geometrical parameters on the energy absorption ability of sandwich panels is clarified. Results show that stagger-layer arrangement of honeycomb core greatly improves energy dissipation capability of sandwich panels compared to typical one with the same mass. The increase of layer number and cell size benefits this effect. These findings indicates that core stagger-layer arrangement is a well choice to improve energy dissipation ability of sandwich panels under air blast loading, especially for highly intensive near-field blast loading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]