Analysis and Comparison of the Projectile Impact Response of an Electron Beam Melt-Ti64 Body Centered Cubic Lattice-Cored Sandwich Plate

Abstract

Background: One potential application of additively fabricated lattice structures is in the blade containment rings of gas turbine engines. The blade containment rings are expected to be able to absorb the kinetic energy of a released blade (broken blade) in order to protect the engine parts from damaging. Metallic lattice-cored sandwich plates provide a gap (free space) between two face sheets, which helps to arrest the released blade and increases the energy absorption capability of containment rings. Objective: The objective was to investigate numerically the projectile impact response of Body-Centered-Cubic (BCC) Electron-Beam-Melt (EBM) lattice-cored/Ti64 face sheet sandwich plates as compared with that of an equal-mass monolithic EBM-Ti64 plate. Methods: The projectile impact simulations were implemented in LS-DYNA using the previously determined flow stress and damage models and a spherical steel impactor at the velocities ranging from 150 to 500 m s−1. The experimental projectile impact tests on the monolithic plate were performed at two different impact velocities and the results were used to confirm the validity of the used flow stress and damage models for the monolithic plate models. Results: Lower impact stresses were found numerically in the sandwich plate as compared with the monolithic plate at the same impact velocity. The bending and multi-cracking of the struts over a wide area in the sandwich plate increased the energy absorption and resulted in the arrest of the projectile at relatively high velocities. While monolithic plate exhibited a local bent area, resulting in the development of high tensile stresses and the projectile perforations at lower velocities. Conclusions: The numerical impact stresses in the sandwich plate were distributed over a wider area around the projectile, leading to the fracture and bending of many individual struts which significantly increased the resistance to the perforation. Hence, the investigated lattice cell topology and cell, strut, and face sheet sizes and the lattice-cored sandwich plate was shown potentially more successful in stopping the projectiles than the equal-mass monolithic plates. © The Author(s) 2025.