Modeling Plastic Shocks in Periodic Laminates with Gradient Plasticity Theories

Steady plastic shocks generated by planar impact on metal-polymer laminate composites, are analyzed in the framework of gradient plasticity theories. The laminate material has a periodic structure with unit cell composed of two layers of different materials. First and second order gradient plasticity theories are used to model the structure of steady plastic shocks. In both theories, the effect of the internal structure is accounted for at the microscopic level by two material parameters depending upon the layers thickness and the properties of constituents. Those two structure-parameters are shown to be uniquely determined from experimental data.