Blast Design of Stay-in-Place PVC-Formed Concrete Walls

Blast resistant design and retrofit of wall systems is of current interest. After standoff, mass and ductility are the most important parameters for blast protection. Concrete walls has the mass necessary, but could lack in ductility if not properly designed. PVC-formed concrete walls are suitable for rapid construction and expeditionary structures. The ductility provided by the PVC layers is expected to enhance the energy absorption capability, and thus improve the blast mitigation capability of the wall system. The paper discusses the mechanics of materials approach for developing the static resistance function for PVC-filled concrete walls. Static tests using a full-scale loading tree to simulate uniform pressure were used to verify the mechanics of materials models. Compared to concrete walls, PVC-concrete wall systems exhibited better energy-absorption capabilities. PI diagrams are developed in this paper to enable blast response prediction of the PVC-concrete wall system.