Predicting the location and size of an explosive device detonated in an urban environment using evidence from building damage

LUCCIONI, BIBIANA MARÍA; AMBROSINI, RICARDO DANIEL; DANESI, RODOLFO

PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS-STRUCTURES AND BUILDINGS

Thomas Telford

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2005 vol. 158 p. 1 - 12

0965-0911

The main objective of this paper is the determination of the mass of explosive and the location of the source of the explosion in a terrorist attack in a congested urban environment. A computational dynamic analysis was carried out over a real congested urban environment that corresponds to the opposites rows of buildings of a block, in the same street. Many combinations corresponding to different locations and explosive mass were simulated and the corresponding distribution of pressure and impulse on building façades was obtained. Additionally, conclusions about the applicability of empirical expressions for the evaluation of incident and reflected pressure and associated impulses in a congested urban ambient arise from the comparison with numerical results and are discussed in the paper.The assessment of damage produced by an explosion on structures can be performed with the use of the so-called isodamage curves that approximately relate pressures and impulses to damage produced in different types of buildings and parts of them. In general, isodamage curves have been obtained from a vast compilation of damage produced in masonry houses and other buildings and structural members in not only experimental but also actual explosions. Damage contours were defined and used in order to compare the real damage with that obtained by the numerical simulation over a wide zone around the origin of the explosion. Additionally, conclusions that lead to the ability to discard many combinations of mass of explosive and location of the source of the explosion arise from the comparison of real and simulated damages and are discussed in the paper.