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Blast Resistance of Ultra High Performance Concrete Structures

Article · December 2017

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Alaukik Singh Satadru Das Adhikary

University of California, Berkeley Indian Institute of Technology (ISM) Dhanbad
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 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 7, Special Issue 2, December 2017
Blast Resistance of Ultra High Performance Concrete Structures
Abhiroop Goswami1, Alaukik Singh2, Satadru Das Adhikary3
1
Ph.D Student, 2B.Tech. Student, 3Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (ISM),
Dhanbad, Jharkhand Pin 826004
Abstract—The world, in the recent times has witnessed a
number of incidents in terms of accidental and intentional
explosions that have caused significant damage to the
infrastructure. This has highlighted the need to study the
effect of blast loading on structures and also drawn the
attention of the global engineering community on this field.
Blast loading is quite different as compared to other
conventional loading, generally high intensity load having
extremely short duration which is also characterized by very
high strain rates. Ultra High Performance Concrete (UHPC)
in comparison to Normal Strength Concrete (NSC) do not just
offer excellent compressive strengths but also characterized
by high ductility and higher toughness which has prompted
the researchers to explore the applicability of UHPC in
protective structures. As limited investigation was carried out
on evaluating the blast resistance of UHPC structures, the
current study aims to determine the response of the NSC and
UHPC panels subjected to blast loading through finite
element (FE) analysis and discuss a comparative study of the
performance of these panels. This study as a whole
demonstrates the effectiveness of the applicability of UHPC in
structures which are susceptible to blast loading.
Keywords—Blast Loading, Modelling, NSC, Panel, UHPC
I. INTRODUCTION
The world has witnessed a number of intentional and
accidental instances where various infrastructures have
been subjected to blast loads, which mark the unfortunate
state of affairs that we dwell in. Incidents such as but not
limited to the bombing of The World Trade Centre in 1993,
the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, Khobar Tower
bombing in 1996, bombing of the US Embassies in
Tanzania and Kenya in 1998, bombing of the Australian
Embassy in Jakarta in 2004 and Oslo attack in 2011 have
drawn the attention of the engineering community to study
the effect of blast loading on structures. The injuries arising
from such explosions are not just due to the instantaneous
release of a large amount of energy but also due to
structural collapse and the hazardous flying debris
generated due to the blast.
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The blast phenomenon is characterized by the
instantaneous release of an enormous amount of energy.
Based on the rate at which the reaction proceeds in the
unreacted material an explosive may be classified as a Low
Explosive (for subsonic speeds), characterized by
deflagration or as a High Explosive (for supersonic speeds),
characterized by detonation.
The evolution of Ultra High Performance Fiber Reinforced
Concrete (UHPFRC) can be traced back to the mid 1990’s
in France (Yoo and Yoon 2016) [1]. UHPFRC offers high
durability, energy absorption capacity and fatigue
resistance over Normal Strength Concrete (NSC) and this
adds to its suitability for applications wherein the structure
is expected to be subjected to blast and impact loading. The
design of UHPFRC utilises high packing density and seeks
to eliminate the voids. This is achieved by limiting the
coarse aggregate. The material composition employed by
Yu et al.(2015) [2] to obtain UHPFRC with compressive
strengths between 120 and 140 MPa was Cement, Filler
material, Fine Sand, Coarse Sand (up to 2mm), Super-
plasticizer, Pozzolanic Materials and Steel Fibers which
was characterized by a high cement content and a low
water to cement ratio.
An extensive experimental and analytical study was carried
out to explore the blast resistance of Normal Strength
Reinforced Concrete (NRC) slabs, unreinforced Ultra-High
Performance Fibre Concrete (UHPFC) and Reinforced
Ultra-High Performance Fibre Concrete (RUHPFC) slabs
along with slabs externally bonded with Fibre Reinforced
Polymer (FRP) sheets by Wu et al. (2009) [3]. From the
tests, it was evident that UHPFC in comparison to NRC
had a much better performance. It was also observed that
the NRC slabs had suffered greater damage as compared to
the plain UHPFC slabs on being subjected to identical blast
loads, thus confirming it to be better suited towards
resisting blast loads.