An Experimental Investigation of Shock Behavior of Glass and Basalt Fiber Composite Laminates in a Shock Tube

Improvised explosive device (IED) blasts causes thousands of deaths every year along with damage to infrastructure. In this study, the deformation behavior of popular blast mitigating materials, i.e., glass fiber reinforced polypropylene (G/PP) and basalt fiber reinforced polypropylene (B/PP) composites, is explored. G/PP and B/PP laminates were fabricated using compression molding and subjected to shock loading using an in-house developed shock tube. The peak-over-pressure (POP), deformation of laminates and strain generated during shock loading were recorded and analyzed. G/PP laminates experienced more deformation and failed by fiber breakage and fiber pull-out. B/PP laminates exhibited enhanced shock wave mitigation properties at the same pressure and revealed less fiber damage. This study gives an idea about the blast mitigation behavior of composite laminates and provides the direction for future work.