DIC determination of localised loading on blast loaded plates from coarse soils

Buried charges pose a serious threat to nearby people and structures. An increased understanding of the loading from buried charges allows for the design of improved protective measures. To this end, results from buried blast testing in uniform sand, well-graded sandy gravel and uniform gravel were compared to establish the effect that large discrete particles have on the delivery of loading across a plate. All tests were conducted with fully saturated soils. The data indicates that the inclusion of large individual particles within the soil matrix leads to localised increases in loading, however the overall peak displacement was similar across soil types. Inspecting the development of velocity uptake across the plate demonstrated markedly different loading behaviours between the uniform sand and the soils containing coarser gravel particles. For lightweight armour systems this distribution of loading could have a profound impact on the protective capacities of the system.