This paper experimentally investigates the blast-resistant characteristics of hybrid fiber-reinforced concrete (HFRC) panels by contact detonation tests. The control specimen of plain concrete, polypropylene (PP), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and steel fiber-reinforced concrete were prepared and tested for characterization in contrast with PP-Steel HFRC and PVA-Steel HFRC. The sequent contact detonation tests were conducted with panel damage recorded and measured. Damaged HFRC panels were further comparatively analyzed whereby the blast-resistance performance was quantitively assessed via damage coefficient and blast-resistant coefficient. For both PP-Steel and PVA-Steel HFRC, the best blast-resistant performance was achieved at around 1.5% steel + 0.5% PP-fiber hybrid. Finally, the fiber-hybrid effect index was introduced to evaluate the hybrid effect on the explosion-resistance performance of HFRC panels. It revealed that neither PP-fiber or PVA-fiber provide positive hybrid effect on blast-resistant improvement of HFRC panels.

This paper deals with the blast-resistant performance of steel fiber-reinforced concrete (SFRC) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fiber-reinforced concrete (PVA-FRC) panels with a contact detonation test both experimentally and numerically. With 2% fiber volumetric content, SFRC and PVA-FRC specimens were prepared and comparatively tested in comparison with plain concrete (PC). SFRC was found to exhibit better blast-resistant performance than PVA-FRC. The dynamic mechanical responses of FRC panels were numerically studied with Lattice Discrete Particle Model-Fiber (LDPM-F) which was recently developed to simulate the meso-structure of quasi-brittle materials. The effect of dispersed fibers was also introduced in this discrete model as a natural extension. Calibration of LDPM-F model parameters was achieved by fitting the compression and bending responses. A numerical model of FRC contact detonation was then validated against the blast test results in terms of damage modes and crater dimensions. Finally, FRC panels with different fiber volumetric fractions (e.g., 0.5%, 1.0% and 1.5%) under blast loadings were further investigated with the validated LDPM-F blast model. The numerical predictions shed some light on the fiber content effect on the FRC blast resistance performance.