Plastic deformation of polymeric-coated aluminum plates subjected to gas mixture detonation loading: Part I: Experimental studies

In this study, a novel processing technique, namely gas mixture detonation method, was used for large plastic deformation of thin rectangular aluminum plates reinforced by polymeric coating. Based on this new idea, a series of experimental tests were conducted on plastic behavior of metal-elastomer bilayer structures with the aim of increasing the threshold of the impulsive load. In these structures, polyurea coating with different thicknesses of 3 mm and 4 mm was used as a reinforcing layer for aluminum plates. In this series of experiments, the effects of the back and front layer thicknesses on the behavior of the structure subjected to five different impulsive loads have been studied. The experimental results indicated that addition of polymeric coating with thicknesses of 3 mm and 4 mm to the 2 mm thick aluminum sheet led to a decrease in the permanent deflections of structure by 12.7% and 21.1% at impulse of 19.1 N·s, 22.2% and 30.9% at impulse of 28.1 N·s, and eventually, 23.3% and 31.3% at impulse of 32.3 N·s, respectively. For 1 mm thick aluminum sheet, using polymeric coating of 3 and 4 mm led to increase of the threshold of the impulsive load 2.1 and 2.4 times, respectively.