Ice impact response and energy dissipation characteristics of PVC foam core sandwich plates: Experimental and numerical study

In this paper, the dynamic responses and energy dissipation characteristics of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) foam core sandwich plates under ice impact are investigated. The ice impact tests of PVC foam core sandwich plates were conducted by employing the horizontal impact experimental apparatus. The finite element simulations were conducted to analyze the dynamic response of PVC foam core sandwich plates based on soil and concrete material model for ice impactor. It was demonstrated that numerical results were in good agreement with experimental results. The deformation modes of the top facesheets were coupling of local indentation with global bending deformation, while the deformation modes of bottom facesheets were overall bending deformation. The permanent deformation of face sheets show that the impact resistance of sandwich plate is better than that of equivalent weight hull plate (EWHP). In addition, based on the actual navigation environment of ship, the effect of impact angle and ice floe shape on dynamic response and energy dissipation are analyzed.