Numerical investigation on effects of blast loading on anti-fragment performance of hollow cylindrical UHMWPE cross-ply laminate

Ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) fiber composites are widely applied for bullet and explosion proofing. This study numerically investigated the dynamic response of a hollow cylindrical UHMWPE cross-ply laminate subjected to combined blast and fragment loading produced by an improvised explosive device (IED). A strain-rate-dependent, anisotropic, elastoplastic constitutive model with progressive failure was adopted for the laminates via a user subroutine and comprehensively verified against the experimental results from the literature. Three sets of simulations of fragment-only loading, blast-only loading and the combined loading were performed on different configurations of IEDs and laminates. It was found that the effects of the blast loading were much weaker than those of the fragment loading and caused very small deformation of the laminate's middle, including somewhat pre-tension along the circumferential direction but almost no fiber fracture. Both with and without blast loading, the dense penetrations of the multiple fragments dominated the response of laminates, including perforated holes that were interconnected with each other and global ply splitting. As a result, the blast effects barely affected the anti-fragment performance of the laminates.