In order to explore the underwater anti-explosion protection effect of steel fiber reinforced cellular concrete materials, the damage process of reinforced concrete slabs under underwater contact explosion was reproduced by the coupling method of smoothed particle hydrodynamics and finite element method (SPH-FEM). The validity of the simulation method was verified by comparing with the experimental results. On this basis, a three-dimensional refined simulation model of water-explosive-protective layer-reinforced concrete slab was established by the SPH-FEM coupling method. The damage evolution process, failure mode and failure mechanism of protective layer of steel fiber reinforced cellular concrete (SAP10S5, SAP10S10, SAP10S15 and SAP10S20) with different fiber ratios and explosive mass were studied, and the prediction curve of damage level of reinforced concrete slabs was constructed. The results show that the numerical simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental results, which verifies the effectiveness of the simulation method. Under the underwater contact explosion, the addition of protective layer of steel fiber reinforced cellular concrete can effectively reduce the damage degree of protected reinforced concrete (RC) slab, and its influence on the damage degree of RC slab decreases first and then increases with the increase of steel fiber volume fraction in the protective layer. Among them, the anti-explosion protection effect of protective layer of SAP10S15 ratio is the best. When the amount of explosive increases within a certain range, the protective layer of SAP10S15 ratio can still maintain a high proportion of energy consumption and effectively reduce the damage degree of the RC plate. When the amount of explosive is 0.25 kg, the damage index of RC slabs strengthened with protective layer of SAP10S15 has the most obvious attenuation compared with the unprotected scheme, which is 42.5%, and the damage level is reduced from serious damage to moderate damage. The prediction curve of constructed damage level can directly evaluate the influence of steel fiber volume fraction/explosive amount on the damage degree of RC panel. The above research results can provide reference for the anti-explosion protection design of wading concrete structures.