Innovative design tool to optimize blast enhanced facade systems

With regards to current blast enhancement design strategies, in the event of an explosion, the facade system is commonly designed to behave in-elastically and undergo large deformations. The large deformation of the facade system leads to high blast energy dissipation which will reduce the blast energy transferred to the main structure. However, human injuries due to glass fragmentation within the vicinity of the damaged facade should also be minimized to meet required safety levels. Effective improvements in overall building safety can be achieved by balancing blast energy dissipation and glass fragmentations. Recently, Permasteelisa Group has developed an innovative design tool to optimize blast enhanced facade using an equivalent Single Degree of Freedom (SDOF) approach. A novel fragmentation tool has been proposed to assist this design procedure. This paper presents the importance of various parameters considered in blast enhanced facade analysis, how these parameters have been experimentally validated and their influence in the design optimization process.