Scaling effect on saturated impulse for square plates under rectangular pulse loading

In this paper, the saturated impulse phenomenon is investigated for elastic-plastic square plates under rectangular pulse loading. Dynamic elastic-plastic response (e.g. the deflection-time curve) of square plates is simulated by employing the finite element (FE) code ABAQUS. Numerical results show that two saturated impulses exist for an elasticplastic plate: one is for maximum deflection and the other is for permanent deflection, and are compared with that obtained from rigid-plastic analysis. The saturated impulse for permanent deflection in the high load range lie between the upper and lower bounds of the saturated impulse for maximum deflection obtained from rigid-plastic analysis. Furthermore scaling effect on saturated impulse is explored. When the length-thickness ratio is constant, a linear relationship exists between the non-dimensional saturated impulse for permanent deflection and the non-dimensional pressure amplitude and it is independent of the absolute size of square plates. Finally, the formulae of the permanent deflection and that of the saturated duration for loading pulse of square plates are proposed to facilitate the anti-blast design for plate structures.