Farrimond, D.G., Rigby, S. orcid.org/0000-0001-6844-3797, Baldam, C. et al. (3 more authors) (2025) MicroBlast: Experimental assessment of charge shape effects on blast loading in urban environments. In: Proceedings of the 27th International Symposium on Military Aspects of Blast and Shock (MABS27). 27th International Symposium on Military Aspects of Blast and Shock (MABS27), 05-10 Oct 2025, Colmar, France. Military Aspects of Blast and Shock (MABS).
Abstract
Rigorous and accurate quantification of blast loading in urban environments is a topic of increasing importance. This work discusses the ongoing development of a new experimental facility, MicroBlast, to study urban blasts at small-scale; typically 1-10g PE10 explosives. In this paper in particular, the effects of charge shape on the form and magnitude of loading within a complex array of reduced-scale building forms are investigated. Experiments are performed using three different charge shapes (hemispheres, cubes, and rotated cubes) and three different environments (free-air and two urban layouts: regular and irregular). A significant finding from this work is that whilst charge shape has a significant influence on free-field blast parameters, loading in an urban environment is largely dependent on the urban layout only, and charge shape effects are secondary.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Proceedings Paper |
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| Authors/Creators: |
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| Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2025 MABS 27. For reuse permissions, please contact the Author(s). |
| Keywords: | charge shape; MicroBlast; small-scale experiments; urban blast |
| Dates: |
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| Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
| Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering |
| Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council EP/X029018/1 |
| Date Deposited: | 07 Oct 2025 13:50 |
| Last Modified: | 07 Oct 2025 14:23 |
| Status: | Published |
| Publisher: | Military Aspects of Blast and Shock (MABS) |
| Refereed: | Yes |
| Related URLs: | |
| Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:232590 |

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