Response of Steel Fiber Reinforced Cementitious Composite Panels Subjected to Extreme Loading Conditions

Application of steel fiber reinforced cementitious composites (SFRCC) in the construction of protective structures against extreme loading conditions, such as high-velocity impact and blasts, is an active area of research. It is a challenging task to capture the material behavior under such harsh conditions where strain rate of loading exceeds beyond 10⁴ s⁻¹. In this paper, an effort is made to simulate numerically the multihits of short projectiles on SFRCC panels. A total of 90 numbers of SFRCC panels consist of various core layer materials, thicknesses, fiber volumes, and angle of obliquity, are tested under high-velocity impacts of short projectiles. In numerical simulations, the boundary conditions and impact loading sequence are maintained, similar to that used during impact tests. In order to carry out a realistic numerical simulation, in-service munitions and ammunitions are used. The numerical response is found to corroborate with experimental results. It is observed that, if two consecutive hits are made within a distance of ten times the diameter of the projectile, then it is considered a case of multihit, else, it is considered as single hit case. The damage contours based on effective plastic strain are found to correlate with impact-tested SFRCC panels.