Response and energy absorption characteristics of foam concrete under blast loads

With the development of society, terrorist bombings happen from time to time. As a new type of material, foam concrete is widely used in building structures, and its antiknock performance has received extensive attention. However, the current research is limited to its mechanical properties and protective effects, ignoring its own dynamic response and energy absorption characteristics. In this paper, the influence of thickness variation on the response and energy absorption characteristics of foam concrete was studied by numerical simulation based on aluminum alloy plates covered by foam concrete with different thickness at 0.8m/kg1/3 ratio detonation distance. The results show that with the increase of the thickness of foam concrete, the damage area decreases and the absorbed energy increases. When the thickness of foam concrete reaches 30mm, the size of the crushing zone is only 2.9% of the whole, and the absorbed energy accounts for 91.9% of the total energy of the explosion wave. This shows that foam concrete has strong anti-explosion properties, which can effectively attenuate the energy of the explosion wave and protect the coated building structure.