ABSTRACT
Important buildings and defence structures have been intentionally targeted in terrorist attacks and military combat by vehicle bombing, missile attacks or through some other explosive devices, methods and materials. It was observed from past incidents that the shock and energy released from explosions led to significant damage to nearby buildings. Furthermore, most buildings carry one or more bombs within them, which may be in the form of a cooking gas cylinder or pressure vessel, etc. One of the major challenges that arise under blast events is the safety of structures and the residing people. The present chapter addresses the blast resistance of square reinforced concrete (RC) plates subjected to explosive loading through testing and finite element (FE) simulations. The reinforced concrete plates have a span length of 1.0 m and a uniform thickness of 0.1 m. Three different amounts of explosives have been exploded from three locations to develop blast loading on the plates. The simulations have been performed in ABAQUS software for an understanding of damage mechanics and to reproduce the experimental results. Also, the effectiveness of carbon fibre reinforced polymers (CFRP) lamination is studied on the damage resistance of the plates. The simulation imitated the damage, crater and spalling in the concrete. The blast pressure increased by 163% with the decrease in the standoff distance. The one-way bending was noticed to be more pronounced for larger scaled distances whereas the plates witnessed splitting and cracking for closer explosions. The CFRP laminate was noticed to have reduced damage and splitting deformation in the concrete, hence improving its performance.
