Failure of water-filled cylindrical glass-reinforced epoxy shells under internal impulsive loading

Conclusions 1. The explosive failure of water-filled, geometrically similar glass-reinforced epoxy shells, whose dimensions increase by a factor of 1.5–4.4, is not associated with an energetic scale effect. This is attributable to the imperfect similarity of the shells, since although their dimensions changed, the diameter of the glass reinforcing fibers remained the same.2. The relative mass of explosive required to fracture the shells is approximately 0.4%. With respect to this index, glass-reinforced epoxy is comparable to structural steels 20 and 17Mn1Si at R₀160 mm.3. The circumferential deformation of the shells at failure is about 4% and does not depend on the thickness of the shell wall, the dimensions of geometrically similar shells, or the initial strain rate on the interval 0.21 · 10³–1.2 · 10³ sec^–1. Thin-walled shells begin to fail from the outside surface, thick-walled shells from the inside surface.4. The modulus of elasticity of the GRE is 2.4 · 10⁵ kgf/cm² and does not depend on the strain rate on the interval 10^–3–1.5 · 10³ sec^–1. The material deforms elastically up to failure.Moscow. Translated from Mekhanika Polimerov, No. 2, pp. 283–289, March–April, 1978.