Over the past century, a large amount of effort has been directed towards the understanding of the effects of high explosive blast loads on structures. In particular, we have developed a strong understanding of the mechanisms of loading in the “far-field”, at sufficient distance from the explosion that the details of the thermochemical state of the detonated explosive are not significant and what matters is that energy has been deposited into a propagating shock wave in the surrounding medium (e.g. air). Computational tools, (both high-fidelity physics-based analyses and simple semi-empirical approaches) have been developed which allow us to predict with reasonable accuracy the magnitudes of the key features of these far-field blast loads. These tools are invaluable in providing protection engineers with quantitative data to allow them to mitigate the effects of high explosive threats. However, the situation in the “near-field”, close to the explosion, where the high pressure, high temperature products of the detonation are still violently expanding, is very different. Here, we have a much less well-developed understanding of the mechanisms of loading, and little definitive validation of the predictions of computational tools. This provides a significant challenge to experimental researchers, to enhance our understanding of these events and improve the understanding of engineers who wish to enhance the safety of structures which may be exposed to the effects of a close proximity detonation. This paper provides some reflections on the challenges posed by the measurement of near-field blast loading, and presents some findings from the author’s research program at University of Sheffield, UK.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)