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The study investigated the response of steel-concrete composite panels subjected to air-blast loading. The composite panels consist of fiber-reinforced high-strength concrete on the incident face, together with a specially configured steel sandwich as the distal layer, which functions to dissipate the imparted blast energy. The performance of the novel composite panel is compared to a conventional steel concrete steel (SCS) panel and an ordinary reinforced concrete panel. The dynamic response of the composite panel is obtained numerically using finite element analysis adopting a simplified modeling approach. Parametric studies are carried out by varying the charge weight, the concrete type, and a number of steel sandwich core structures. Furthermore, the energy absorption capacity is found by calculating the area under the resistance-deflection curve of the proposed composite panel. The relationship between the steel sandwich core structure and the energy absorption capacity, as well as the core design and total panel deflection subjected to various blast charges, are then derived. The combination of fiber reinforced high-strength concrete and cellular steel sandwich demonstrated good potential for use as blast mitigation panel due to the high weight-to-performance ratio and the high energy absorption properties of the composite system.

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Mechanical properties (tensile strength and modulus) of Chitin Whiskers fibre-reinforced poly(acrylic acid) with different fibre loading and different gauge lengths are compared with theories of reinforcement. The addition of random oriented Chitin Whiskers to poly(acrylic acid) matrix increased in tensile strength and elastic modulus of the composite. There was a steady increase in tensile stress and Elastic modulus within the volume fraction range investigated. The properties of the composite at different gauge lengths were studied. Within the same volume fraction, the tensile stress decreases as the gauge length increases. It is the reverse for the Elastic Modulus. Irrespective of filler loading and the theoretical modelling equations the tensile stress can be predicted at 40 mm gauge length. For the Elastic Modulus, the prediction of the property varies within the gauge lengths investigated. At higher filler loading, a smaller gauge length is required to predict the Elastic modulus. The comparative study between the tensile stresses obtained by experiment and selected theoretical models showed that the Parallel and Series models of the Rule of Mixture produced more accurate prediction, followed by Halpin-Tsai and modified Halpin-Tsai models. Guth's model was the least as the percentage deviation from the experimental data was very high when predicting the Elastic modulus. The density of the nanocomposite films were 1.08g/cm3, 1.023, and 1.024g/cm3 respectively, for 3%, 6%, and 9% weight filler and were in agreement with the theoretical data.