Experimental investigation on weak shock wave mitigation characteristics of flexible polyurethane foam and polyurea

In recent years,explosion shock wave has been considered as a signature injury of the current military conflicts.Although strong shock wave is lethal to the human body,weak shock wave can cause many more lasting consequences.To investigate the protection ability and characteristics of flexible materials and structures under weak shock wave loading,the blast wave produced by TNT explosive is loaded on the polyurethane foam with the density of 200.0 kg/m3(F-200)and 400.0 kg/m3(F-400),polyurea with the density of 1100.0 kg/m^(3)(P-1100)and structures composed of the two materials,which are intended for individual protection.Experimental results indicate that the shock wave is attenuated to weak pressure disturbance after interacting with the flexible materials which are not damaged.The shock wave protective capability of single-layer materials is dependent on their thickness,density and microscopic characteristics.The overpressure,maximum pressure rise rate and impulse of transmitted wave decrease exponentially with increase in sample thickness.For the same thickness,F-400 provides better protective capability than F-200 while P-1100 shows the best protective capability among the three materials.In this study,as the materials are not destroyed,F-200 with a thickness more than10.0 mm,F-400 with a thickness more than 4.0 mm,and P-1100 with a thickness more than 1.0 mm can attenuate the overpressure amplitude more than 90.0%.Further,multi-layer flexible composites are designed.Different layer layouts of designed structures and layer thickness of the single-layer materials can affect the protective performance.Within the research range,the structure in which polyurea is placed on the impact side shows the optimal shock wave protective performance,and the thicknesses of polyurea and polyurethane foam are 1.0 mm and 4.0 mm respectively.The overpressure attenuation rate reached maximum value of 93.3%and impulse attenuation capacity of this structure are better than those of single-layer polyurea and polyurethane foam with higher areal density.

Air Plasma Mitigation of Shock Wave

Shock wave is a detriment in the development of supersonic aircrafts;it increases flow drag as well as surface heating from additional friction;it also initiates sonic boom on the ground which precludes supersonic jetliner to fly overland. A shock wave mitigation technique is demonstrated by experiments conducted in a Mach 2.5 wind tunnel. Non-thermal air plasma generated symmetrically in front of a wind tunnel model and upstream of the shock, by on-board 60 Hz periodic electric arc discharge, works as a plasma deflector, it deflects incoming flow to transform the shock from a well-defined attached shock into a highly curved shock structure. In a sequence with increasing discharge intensity, the transformed curve shock increases shock angle and moves upstream to become detached with increasing standoff distance from the model. It becomes diffusive and disappears near the peak of the discharge. The flow deflection increases the equivalent cone angle of the model, which in essence, reduces the equivalent Mach number of the incoming flow, manifesting the reduction of the shock wave drag on the cone. When this equivalent cone angle exceeds a critical angle, the shock becomes detached and fades away. This shock wave mitigation technique helps drag reduction as well as eliminates sonic boom.