ABSTRACT

Suicide attacks have become a sad reality around the world. There has been a noticeable increase in the number of terrorist attacks in the last decade, especially in the Middle East. These attacks have been implemented inside cities targeting civilians and their properties. Numerous numbers of victims and billions of dollars’ worth of losses in infrastructure have been reported. The need for new approaches to mitigate blast loadings, including the design of blast wall systems, is pressing. Several applications of simple blast wall systems have been already used for military purposes with varying degrees of success. This study focused on developing and analyzing a new simple blast wall system made of readily available materials for non-military applications. Specifically, numerical models were developed to examine the performance of brick-wood-sand-wood-brick (BWSWaB) walls under free-air blast loading. A three-dimensional dynamic finite element method (3D-FEM) was used to analyze the wall. The blast load was simulated using the ConWep blast loading model. The results showed that BWSWaB walls can provide promising levels of protection for considered threat scenarios, and it can be designed by engineers according to an expected attack plan. The study tried to draw the attention of researchers to the efficiency of simple wall systems in mitigating the hazard of explosions in different attack scenarios.