Experiment was performed to investigate the blast resistant performance of composite blast resistant wall subjected to variable blast loading. Then a numerical method was used to analyze the deformation process. In addition, an optimal design has been conducted to reduce the permanent maximum displacement and improve the stability of energy absorption. Effect of several design parameters, i.e. face-sheet thickness, concrete thickness, frame spacing are discussed. The research results show that composite blast resistant wall tend to have localized center dishing on the surface subjected to lower level blast loading. With the loading increasing, the center dishing expands to boundary. The tensile deformation at the center transform to the shear deformation at the boundary. When the blast loading is increasing continually, the penetration and the global failure occurs. After optimization of the structure parameters, the performance of the composite blast resistant wall is improved, and the optimization results can be used to guide the practical design. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.