Technical Papers
Apr 6, 2015

Incident and Normally Reflected Overpressure and Impulse for Detonations of Spherical High Explosives in Free Air

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Publication: Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 141, Issue 12

Abstract

Air-blast parameters, including incident and reflected peak overpressures and impulses, and shock-front arrival times, are typically estimated for protective design using charts developed by Kingery and Bulmash. The charts underpredict incident and normally reflected peak overpressures and incident impulse near the face of the charge. Numerical analyses of detonations of spherical charges of trinitrotoluene in free air are performed using a verified and validated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code to understand the shortcomings of current approaches for calculating incident and normally reflected overpressures and impulses, and for shock-front arrival time. New equations and design charts are proposed based on CFD calculations.

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Acknowledgments

The financial support for the studies described herein was provided by MCEER (http://www.mceer.buffalo.edu) under Thrust Area 3, Innovative Technologies, through a grant from the State of New York. This support is gratefully acknowledged. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of MCEER, the State of New York, or Arup.

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Go to Journal of Structural Engineering
Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 141Issue 12December 2015

History

Received: Jun 17, 2014
Accepted: Feb 12, 2015
Published online: Apr 6, 2015
Discussion open until: Sep 6, 2015
Published in print: Dec 1, 2015

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Authors

Affiliations

Jinwon Shin [email protected]
Research Fellow, Dept. of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, Univ. at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260; State Univ. of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260 (corresponding author). E-mail: [email protected]
Andrew S. Whittaker, M.ASCE
Professor and Chair, Dept. of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, Univ. at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260; State Univ. of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260.
David Cormie, M.ASCE
Associate Director, Resilience, Security and Risk, Arup, 13 Fitzroy St., London W1T 4BQ, U.K.

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