Response of soft materials to extreme loads: quasi-static to blast

Langdon, G.S., Osborne, E., Curry, R.J., Clarke, S.D., Hibbert, A., Waddoups, R., Farrimond, D., Lodge, T., Tyas, A., Denny, J.W. and Tyler, J.P. (2025) Response of soft materials to extreme loads: quasi-static to blast. Zingoni, Alphose (ed.) In Engineering Materials, Structures, Systems and Methods for a More Sustainable Future. CRC Press. pp. 23-28 . (doi:10.1201/9781003488644-4).

Abstract

Blast loading causes devastating human injuries, deaths and damage. The challenge is to understand what happens, including the ways in which the extreme loads from explosions are transferred to people, causing human injury. There is a pressing need for experimental and modelling approaches that interrogate how explosion loading is transferred to and through the body. This paper will present some experimental techniques used to characterise synthetic gelatine under quasi-static and explosion loading conditions. The challenges of testing a soft material under blast loading conditions are discussed. The use of non-contact measurement techniques to obtain the velocity and out-of-plane displacement fields, namely the use of high-speed stereo-imaging and digital image correlation, were essential in advancing this area. The results showed that gelatine delayed the arrival of the blast waves in remote areas, and reduced the initial velocity of the rear plate.

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Contributors

Author: J.W. Denny

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