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ABSTRACT
Analytic techniques and computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
software programs are currently in use for assessing the blast loads on
military structures for a variety of situations. These approaches, of
necessity, are now being extended to the calculation of explosionstructure interaction problems where the loadings are not upon
hardened military targets but rather on civilian structures. This has
become of great importance as high explosive bomb attacks have been
increasingly directed against many commercial, financial and civic
centers consisting of buildings of conventional, soft construction.
One aspect in the protection of such structures is the accurate
prediction of the blast loadings on structural components using
analytic or advanced numerical tools taking into account the
complexity of the building, its geometry and the surrounding
environment. Such an understanding of the loads can help define
building protection options such as selection of materials, relocation of
building services, siting, and construction techniques.
Various different numerical and analytic techniques are discussed
and illustrated by example. Applications discussed include:
1. INTRODUCTION
Commercial buildings are constructed quite differently than
hardened military structures and as such are generally quite vulnerable
to blast and ballistic threats. In order to design structures which are
able to withstand explosions it is necessary to first quantify the effects
of such explosions. Such quantification should lead to better and more
cost effective design. Typically, it takes a combination of specialist
expertise, experimental tests, and analysis tools to properly quantify
the effects.
This paper concentrates on various analysis methods available to
predict the loads from a high explosive blast on commercial buildings.
Different analysis methods are appropriate to different situations. The
loading types and structural design requirements are discussed in the
context of what the analyses should provide. A number of example
analyses are shown.
2. SOFTWARE TOOLS
A variety of software tools are available from various sources to
quantify the effects of explosives on structures. The table below
summarizes those in use by the authors but does not purport to
encompass the wide variety of software available to the community.
The various blast load analyses presented in this paper are discussed in
terms of the generic methods that can be used.
AUTODYN-2D
Numerical
AUTODYN-3D
Numerical
Century Dynamics
AutoReaGas (3D)
MADER codes
US Army codes
BLAPAN
SPLIT-X
Numerical
Numerical & Analytical
Analytical
Analytical
Analytical
Century Dynamics/TNO
Charles Mader
US DOD
Century Dynamics
CONDAT/Century Dynamics
Typical Responses
Air blast
Primary fragments
Secondary fragments
Summing the impulse for each sub-section then provides the total
impulse applied to the surface.
5. ANALYTIC METHODS
The US Army manual TM5-8551 provides a useful screening tool
for assessing blast loads when many combinations of explosive device
and location must be considered. Load time histories for buildings and
structural members may be calculated according to the method
outlined in TM5-855. The principal steps of the method are:
6. NUMERICAL METHODS
The numerical methods most appropriate to the simulation of the
blast problem are typically based upon a finite difference, finite
volume, or finite element method utilizing explicit time integration.
By way of illustration, the AUTODYN3 and AutoReaGas 4 system of
programs will be used to illustrate some of the generic capabilities of
these types of codes for predicting the blast loads on structures.
Programs available to the community incorporate a number of
different widely used numerical techniques. Each of these techniques
has certain advantages and disadvantages. No single method can
handle all regimes of a typical problem. The challenge is to apply
these techniques in the most efficient and accurate fashion for an
optimum solution.
The various techniques can be generally characterized as below:
7. COMPARISON OF ANALYTIC
RESULTS FOR A VALIDATING CASE
AND
Office Block
15
15 m
m
100 Kg TNT
NUMERICAL
P2
P1
P5
P3
P4
P6
80m
Office Block
Building 2
Building 1
1000 Kg TNT
9m
10 m
30 meters
11.1 Objectives
On April 19, 1995 a terrorist explosive device was detonated
outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City
causing severe damage to 75 buildings. Nearly half of the 200ft x 70ft
federal building tower was brought down along with a major loss of
life. To gain further information relating to the loads which the
When the blast wave reaches the end of the 1D mesh, the solution
profile of density, energy, velocity, and pressure is saved. This is then
mapped into the 3D mesh as an initial condition.
200ft
Parking Lot
(20ft tall)
70ft
45ft
70ft
J=2
I = 451
I=1
r = 726.5 mm
Explosive Device
230ft
15ft
Federal Building
(130ft tall)
J=1
r = 4700 mm
Gauge #3
Gauge #7
Gauge #9
Gauge #8
Gauge #14
Trade Center bombing was modeled using ~18,000,000 cells (an order
of magnitude smaller than indicated above). The calculation, as well
as the associated data handling, imposed a very heavy load on a
modern CRAY supercomputer.8
Therefore, as a practical matter, for a full investigation into the
loading applied to the building, regardless of the computer resources
available, one typically needs to run several analyses covering
different scale ranges. For example, it is suggested that at least three
analyses be used to obtain reasonably accurate predictions over all the
building facades:
i) Entire building (1m x 1m x 1m cells) - Large Model
ii) North facade and East corner of building (0.5m x 0.5m x 0.5m
cells) - Small Model
iii) North facade local to device (0.125m x 0.125m x 0.125m cells) extent depends on
particular feature of the building which
is of interest
Figure 18a. Small model overpressure, initial condition
11.2.5 3D Blast Interaction with Building (Small Model)
To illustrate the above point, a local analysis of the North facade
and East corner of the building (see Figure 17) was performed using
double the spatial resolution (relative to the Large Model). This
results in a model of 560,000 cells. Figures 18 illustrate some of the
Small Model results.
10m
Building North Facade
5m
16m
25m
40m
14m
10
11