Materials for sacrificial blast wall as protective structure

Investigation on the performance of sacrificial blast walls subjected to blast loading is presented here. Three dimensional nonlinear dynamic analyses of sacrificial blast walls under blast loading have been performed using finite element software Abaqus 6.11. Sacrificial blast walls of different thicknesses made up of steel, plain, reinforced and steel fibre reinforced concrete have been examined under blast loading. Strain rate dependent properties of all the materials have been used in the analyses. Blast load is applied in the form of pressure-time history curve calculated using the TM5-1300 manual and the modified Friedlander's equation. Stress and peak displacement response of the sacrificial blast walls have been studied. It is observed that the sacrificial blast walls made up of steel fibre reinforced concrete show lesser stress and peak displacement, and thus higher blast response reduction capability. © 2013, Indian National Science Academy. All rights reserved.