Experimental and numerical study of a RC member under a close-in blast loading

RAMÓN CODINA; DANIEL AMBROSINI; FERNANDA DE BORBÓN

ENGINEERING STRUCTURES

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2016

0141-0296

In recent years, many attacks all over the world have shown that terrorism related activity is dramaticallyincreasing. In this context, columns are the most critical structural components and their failure is theprimary cause for progressive collapse in framed structures. The effects of near-field explosions onstructural elements, especially columns, have not been widely investigated in the literature. Therefore,the main objectives of this paper are: to evaluate the effectiveness of a numerical model to replicatethe experimental damages of reinforced concrete (RC) columns subjected to close-in blast loading; toobtain modelling guidelines for this phenomenon and to provide quality experimental data that couldbe used as a reference to check the accuracy of a variety of calculation methods. For these purposes,RC members were subjected to a near field explosion in full scale. Experimental tests and numerical simulationsare carried out in order to calibrate the numerical model. In this context, a new set of parametersfor the constitutive equations of the concrete is proposed and verified.