Advances in naval composite and sandwich structures for blast and implosion mitigations

Naval structures owing to their operational conditions get exposed to extreme loadings and environments. Along with blasts generated through explosion events, enclosed naval structures are also vulnerable to structural dynamic instability, leading to implosion and catastrophic failure. This review explores state of the art in research work carried out to understand the deformation and damage mechanism of naval sandwich structures both on the surface and deep-sea environments. A brief overview of the current understanding regarding the response of sandwich structures to air shock, underwater shock, and implosion owing to dynamic instability is provided. The effect of environmental conditions on the dynamic response of these structures is also discussed. The article further discusses various mitigation techniques proposed to improve the blast and implosion mitigation of sandwich structures and points out the current research gaps existing in the common understanding.