 General design approaches and assumptions in blast design

 Design criteria and reference documents

 General design steps
 Blast design of components:
 Application of blast loads
 The SDOF approach
 Response limits
 Shear and connections
 Examples(SBEDS SDOF workbook for steel components)
 Frames and building system

The blast wave as it propagates to the building happens very quickly and it loads the building
causing all different types of response modes I mean some the elements of the structures are
getting pushed in every direction up and down are being compressed been pulling tension so
the main thing or the first thing that we want to point out is the level of simplification that we
go through in terms of analyzing a building to blast loads you know we look at the building on a
component by component basis and once we look at one component we further simplify but
only focusing on one modal response
The columns the braces are all getting loaded in different directions and when we analyze those
elements we are going to simply find at the component level and in addition to that we are
going to be focusing mainly on the flexural mode of response.
In order to load a component the component is to have a member that collects the load and
transfers to the members as you notice here this building the façade or the envelope of the
building was not hardened so it fails really quickly and when they come the blast load enters the
occupied space there is no significant damage to the members that’s because none of them
have collecting elements that were collecting the blast load and transferring to the members.
The final 2 points that I want to make is that the in an actual blast resistant building the
envelope is the first line of protection so a lot of the structural elements that make the lateral
system and the gravity system are protected from the blast loads so when you are going to be
designed a building you are going to be concentrating on the exposed elements which generally
occur in the roof of the building and finally you know I want to pay attention the lateral
response of the frame itself is minimal we see a lot of shaking happening in dust on the ground
shock which is that is a component of a blast load that kurt mentioned you can design for that it
typically requires the vessel to be very very large but in terms like the sway response of the
frame itself is minimal and that’s generally because of the differences in load duration and the
 natural period of response of these buildings and we are going to cover that later in the
presentation .

General Design Approaches:

 Closed-form energy solutions
 Accuracy depends if component is in the applicable response realm
 Chart solutions
 Single-Degree-Of-Freedom (SDOF)
 Use time-stepping numerical solutions to solve the basic equation of motion
 Standard design approach by blast designers
 Combines an explicit consideration of the dynamic structural response, and design
simplicity
 Equivalent static load (ESL)
 Used for connections and other stiff members including bracing and framing
components
 More accurate when dynamic load is applied slowly compared to the component
response time (limited inertial effects)
 Dynamic finite element method
 Non-linear material properties and non-linear geometry should typically be used
 Numerous applicable commercial codes for various types of blast design problem

Once you are faced with a blast resistant design problems you have 3 or 4 different
ways that you can go about it first we have the energy or closed form solutions these
type of equations are advantageous because you can basically solve them by hand and
all you are doing is having to find an equilibrium of the energy from the blast load and
the strain energy system the downside of the closed form from energy solutions is that
your component needs to be clearly in the right and applicable respone realm in other
words it needs to be clearly controlled by the impulse of the blast load or it needs to be
clearly controlled by the pressure of the blast load and we are going to talk about that
once we get into the we are going to see an example for a closed form energy solution
and we are going to discuss it a little bit more detail later in the presentation

Next we have SDOF approach which it’s the most typically use design method our least
in my experience and that is because it’s a good combination of explicit consideration of
dynamic effects plus it’s simple enough that allows rapid design so that you are trying to
keep up with the design phases you know I mean we need to keep in mind that when
we are doing our blast resistant design a lot of times you are part of the design team
and maybe you are in a design- build effort which a very fast or even a design build you
have to be able to produce rapid and efficient design so that you keep up with the
design team single degree of freedom analysis gives you that capability of providing that
balance between accurate designs and quick
Next we have the equivalent static load (ESL) is a method in which we calculate an
equivalent static load that is based on the ultimate flexural dynamic of a member in
other words we calculate their reactions the maximal reactions that those members can
transfer before they fail this method is generally used to calculate connections and
components at the end of the low path so we are going to talk about this later when we
talk about the frame response but one of the method for looking at the frame response
of a building is using ESL of the envelope components and applying them statically in the
lateral directions

Finally we have the dynamic finite element method this requires the use of more
sophisticated analysis tools that can account for nonlinear material properties and
nonlinear geometry, is generally saved for special conditions you know for example if
you are designing an interior detonation for a mailroom or so like inside a parking
garage or you have a very close in charge way right next to a column and you want to try
to take into consideration different models responses that are not going to be flexural
you may need to employ this method but for most designs in terms of like typical
buildings and single degree of freedom or close energy solutions or chart methods
should be adequate for you to get an efficient design

Basic Design assumptions