Blast resistance of 3D-printed Bouligand concrete panels reinforced with steel fibers: Numerical investigations

3D-printed concrete structures inspired by Bouligand architecture with helically twisted sequences exhibit excellent mechanical performance owing to its aligned fiber orientation. In this study, 3D-printed concrete panels with different numbers of layers (five, ten, and 15 layers) and spiral angles (0°, 15°, 30°, and 45°) are designed for numerical investigations of their blast-resistant capacity. A multi-scale model is developed to capture the isotropic and anisotropic properties of the fiber-concrete composite. The adequacy and accuracy of the model are evaluated and validated by experimental data in the literature. Blast resistance of different types of panels in terms of time histories of central-point deflection, contact explosion-induced plastic dissipation energy, stress propagation, and principal stress distribution is examined. It is found that extrusion-based concrete panels with aligned fiber orientation substantially enhance the blast resistance compared to traditional cast concrete panels with random fiber orientation. Furthermore, more layers of printed concrete panels prove to be more efficient in filtering blast waves. In particular, shifting a pitch angle of 30° after printing each layer plays an important role in reducing the maximum deflection. Meanwhile, 3D-printed concrete panels with a pitch angle of 0° can better mitigate blast-induced damage. Through parametric studies, the intrinsic mechanism of steel fibers aligned in 3D-printed panels is numerically analyzed to support the conclusions.