Experimental study on shockwave protection of aerogel sandwich polycarbonate composite structures

To address the anti-blast demands of military equipment such as armoured vehicles and naval vessels, lightweight sandwich structures with silica aerogel core and polycarbonate (PC) panels are experimentally investigated via shock tube tests under four blast pressures (P1 = 105 kPa, P2 = 180 kPa, P3 = 227 kPa, P4 = 275 kPa). Codes “1” and “0” stand for aerogel sandwich and pure PC sheet; “10” denotes aerogel-fronted double-layer arrangement and “01” the PC-first counterpart. Single-layer, double-layer (10) and triple-layer (110) structures achieve peak overpressure attenuation of 45.68%, 54.32% and 64.20% under low-medium loads. Structural protection degrades with rising load beyond the critical threshold P3, and aerogel-fronted layouts outperform PC-first schemes throughout tests. This study supplies experimental basis for optimizing lightweight anti-shock structures.