Response of flat steel-concrete-corrugated steel sandwich panel under drop-weight impact load by a hemi-spherical head

In this paper, a flat steel plate-concrete-corrugated steel plate (FS-C-CS) sandwich panel was proposed and its impact responses were first studied by employing the drop-weight impact test. All the tested FS-C-CS sandwich panels exhibited combination of local indention and global flexural deformation mode. Three stages of impact process were identified based on the characteristics of impact force and displacement response histories. In addition, the Finite Element (FE) model of the FS-C-CS panel under impact load was established, and the failure modes and impact energy dissipation performances of the FS-C-CS panels were obtained. The results showed that the concrete core dissipated the majority of impact energy, followed by corrugated plate and flat plate. Furthermore, the impact resistant performance of the FS-C-CS panel was found to be improved as compared to the traditional SCS sandwich panel with two flat faceplates in terms of smaller deformation as well as larger impact force and post-peak mean force. Moreover, the effects of corrugated steel plate height and steel plate thickness on impact responses of the FS-C-CS panels were analyzed. The results indicated that increasing corrugated plate height could reduce the maximum deformation of the FS-C-CS panel. Increasing corrugated plate thickness resulted in the reduction of maximum deformation, but increase of maximum impact force and post-peak mean force. The FE parametric studies also showed that decreasing the spacings of shear connectors as well as increasing the compressive strength of concrete and employing end plates led to improved impact resistance of the FS-C-CS panel.