Analytical modeling for perforation of foam-composite sandwich panels under high-velocity impact

In this paper, a new simple analytical model for perforation process of composite sandwich panels subjected to high-velocity impact of flat-ended projectile is presented. The panels consist of foam core sandwiched between two composite skins. In the analytical model, global deformation, plug shearing or localized tensile fracture, delamination of front and back-up composite skins, and the absorbed energy during the perforation of the sandwich panel are calculated considering the local indentation and also the energy balancing equation is employed to determine the ballistic limit and residual velocity of projectile. The results of current new model are compared with the experimental results available in the open literature and the finite element simulation results obtained by the LS-Dyna code. A good agreement is observed between the analytical and numerical model results and the experimental results.