Compressive response of multilayered pyramidal lattices during underwater shock loading

The quasi-static and dynamic compressive mechanical response of a multilayered pyramidal lattice structure constructed from stainless-steel was investigated. The lattices were fabricated by folding perforated 304 stainless steel sheets and bonding them to thin intervening sheets using a transient liquid-phase bonding technique. The resulting structure was attached to thick face sheets and the through thickness mechanical response was investigated quasi-statically and dynamically, in the latter case using a planar explosive loading technique. The lattice is found to crush in a progressive manner by the sequential (cooperative) buckling of truss layers. This results in a quasi-static stress strain response that exhibits a significant metal foam like stress plateau to strains of about 60% before rapid hardening due to truss impingement with the intermediate face sheets. During dynamic loading, sequential buckling of the truss layers was manifested as a series of transmitted pressure pulses measured at the back face of the test samples. The sequential buckling extended the duration of the back face pressure-time waveform and significantly reduced the transmitted pressure measured at the back face. The impulse transmitted to the structure is found to be about 28% less than that predicted by analytic treatments of the fluid-structure interaction for fully supported structures. This transmitted impulse reduction appears to be a consequence of the wet side face sheet movement away from the blast wave and is facilitated by the low crush resistance of the-lattice structure. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.