• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.5A
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• pp.565-575
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• 2009

In recent years, there have been numerous explosion-related accidents due to military and terrorist activities. Such incidents caused not only damages to structures but also human casualties, especially in urban areas. To protect structures and save human lives against explosion accidents, better understanding of the explosion effect on structures is needed. In an explosion, the blast load is applied to concrete structures as an impulsive load of extremely short duration with very high pressure and heat. Generally, concrete is known to have a relatively high blast resistance compared to other construction materials. However, normal strength concrete structures require higher strength to improve their resistance against impact and blast loads. Therefore, a new material with high-energy absorption capacity and high resistance to damage is needed for blast resistance design. Recently, Ultra High Strength Concrete(UHSC) and Reactive Powder Concrete(RPC) have been actively developed to significantly improve concrete strength. UHSC and RPC, can improve concrete strength, reduce member size and weight, and improve workability. High strength concrete are used to improve earthquake resistance and increase height and bridge span. Also, UHSC and RPC, can be implemented for blast resistance design of infrastructure susceptible to terror or impact such as 9.11 terror attack. Therefore, in this study, the blast tests are performed to investigate the behavior of UHSC and RPC slabs under blast loading. Blast wave characteristics including incident and reflected pressures as well as maximum and residual displacements and strains in steel and concrete surface are measured. Also, blast damages and failure modes were recorded for each specimen. From these tests, UHSC and RPC have shown to better blast explosions resistance compare to normal strength concrete.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.29 no.5A
• /
• pp.557-564
• /
• 2009

In recent years, there have been numerous explosion-related accidents due to military and terrorist activities. Such incidents caused not only damages to structures but also human casualties, especially in urban areas. To protect structures and save human lives against explosion accidents, better understanding of the explosion effect on structures is needed. In an explosion, the blast overpressure is applied to concrete structures as an impulsive load of extremely short duration with very high pressure and heat. Generally, concrete is known to have a relatively high blast resistance compared to other construction materials. However, information and test results related to the blast experiment of internal and external have been limited due to military and national security reasons. Therefore, in this paper, to evaluate blast effect on reinforced have concrete structure and its protective performance, blast tests are carried out with $1.0m{\times}1.0m{\times}150mm$ reinforce concrete slab structure at the Agency for Defence Development. The standoff blast distance is 1.5 m and the preliminary tests consists with TNT 9 lbs and TNT 35 lbs and the main tests used ANFO 35 lbs. It is the first ever blast experiment for nonmilitary purposes domestically. In this paper, based on the basic experiment procedure and measurement details for acquiring structural behavior data, the blast experimental measurement system and procedure are established details. The procedure of blast experiments are based on the established measurement system which consists of sensor, signal conditioner, DAQ system, software. It can be used as basic research references for related research areas, which include protective design and effective behavior measurements of structure under blast loading.