Investigation of blast response of GLARE laminates: comparison against experimental results

GLARE is a combination of metal and composite materials (known as fibre metal laminates) that was developed as an alternative for aluminium in aerospace applications due to its superior fatigue characteristics and impact resistance. Since GLARE is increasingly being used for aircraft structural components, an interesting scenario is the blast loading of a GLARE structural panel due to an onboard explosion. In the present work, finite element models were generated for various charge sizes for a typical GLARE configuration used for fuselage skin, and the numerical results were compared against experimental results. The numerical models were generated in a way that each ply was modelled separately, and a tie-break contact algorithm was implemented in order to capture debonding between the various layers. Additionally, an elastic plastic material model was implemented for the aluminium layers, and a composite material model with damage parameters that introduces non-linearities into the material model was considered for the composite layers.