Investigations of Structural Damage Caused by the Fertilizer Plant Explosion at West, Texas. II: Ground Shock
Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 30, Issue 4
Abstract
An explosion occurred at a fertilizer plant in the town of West, Texas, on Wednesday, April 17, 2013, devastating a populated neighborhood. A total of 15 people were killed, and approximately 160 more people were injured. Approximately 150 buildings were damaged in the explosion, and the damage to affected homes and businesses was estimated to exceed $100 million. This research documents the building damages caused by the unprecedented explosion and evaluates the technical information for the explosion. The Part I paper of this research focused on the building damage documentation and air-blast incident overpressure calculations. As a companion paper, this manuscript (Part II) primarily focuses on the study of blast-induced ground-shock effects. The ground shock–induced building damages and ground vibration peak particle velocities (PPVs) are analyzed. With a combined consideration of these two types of blast loadings, the air-blast incident overpressures and ground shocks, the field investigated damages caused by the West Fertilizer plant explosion are explained in a more precise manner. The air-blast incident overpressure is identified as the dominant factor for the damages of both wood light-frame buildings and engineering buildings. The ground shock is the secondary factor but is still important. Concluding the research outcomes in the Part I and Part II papers, this study proposes a four-scale blast-induced damage severity evaluation system, demonstrates efficient blast-loading calculation methods for both the air-blast incident overpressure and ground-shock PPV, and provides a correlation between the blast loadings and the blast-induced damages for the West Fertilizer plant explosion case. The documentation and analyses that resulted from this research could serve as a good case study for better understanding of the blast loadings and building structural responses.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This paper is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. CMMI-1342469. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Additionally, the authors would like to offer a special thank you to the West Police Department, The West News, and Tongji University (in China) for their supports.
References
Adhikari, G. R., et al. (2005). “Role of blast design parameters on ground vibration and correlation of vibration level to blasting damage to surface structures.”, National Institute of Rock Mechanics, Karnataka, India.
Ambraseys, N. R., and Hendron, A. J. (1968). “Dynamic behaviour of rock masses.” Rock mechanics in engineering practice, K. G. Stagg and O. C. Zienkiewicz, eds., Wiley, London, 203–227.
British Standards Institution. (1993). “Evaluation and measurement for vibration in buildings. Part 2: Guide to damage levels from groundborne vibration.”, London.
Brode, H. L. (1964). “A review of nuclear explosion phenomena pertinent to protective construction.”, Rand, Santa Monica, CA.
Bureau of Indian Standards. (1973). “Criteria for safety and design of structures subject to underground blasts.” IS 6922, New Delhi, India.
CMRI (Central Mining Research Institute). (1993). Vibration standards, Dhanbad, India.
Department of Defense. (2008). “Structures to resist the effects of accidental explosions.”, Washington, DC.
DGMS (Directorate General of Mines Safety). (1997). “Damage of the structures due to blast induced ground vibration in the mining areas.”, Dhanbad, Jharkhand, India.
DIN (Deutsches Institut für Normung). (1986). “Structural vibration part 3: Effects of vibration on structures.”, Berlin.
Duvall, W. I., and Fogelson, D. E. (1962). “Review of criteria for estimating damage to residences from blasting vibrations.”, U.S. Bureau of Mines, Pittsburgh.
Duvall, W. I., and Petkof, B. (1959). “Spherical propagation of explosion generated strain pulses in rock.”, U.S. Bureau of Mines, Pittsburgh.
Elnashai, A., and Di Sarno, L. (2008). Fundamentals of earthquake engineering, Wiley, Hoboken, NJ.
Ghosh, A., and Daemen, J. J. K. (1983). “A simple new blast vibration predictor (based on wave propagation laws).” Proc., 24th U.S. Symp. on Rock Mechanics, Texas A&M Univ. and Association of Engineering Geologists, American Rock Mechanics Association, Alexandria, VA, 151–161.
Kahriman, A. (2004). “Analysis of parameters of ground vibration produced from bench blasting at a limestone quarry.” Soil Dyn. Earthquake Eng., 24(11), 887–892.
Khandelwal, M., Kumar, D. L., and Yellishetty, M. (2011). “Application of soft computing to predict blast-induced ground vibration.” Eng. Comput., 27(2), 117–125.
Langefors, U., and Kihlstrom, B. (1963). The modern technique of rock blasting, Wiley, New York.
Loftis, R. (2013). “Analysis: West fertilizer report details sequence of a catastrophe.” Dallas Morning News, May 16.
Lucca, F. J. (2003). “Tight construction blasting: Ground vibration basics, monitoring, and prediction.” Effective blast design optimization, Terra Dinamica LLC, Granby, CT.
Ngo, T., Mendis, P., Gupta, A., and Ramsay, J. (2007). “Blast loading and blast effects on structures—An overview.” Electron. J. Struct. Eng., 7, 76–91.
Odello, R. J., and Price, P. (1976). “Ground shock effects from accidental explosions.”, Picatinny Arsenal, Dover, NJ.
Rai, R., and Singh, T. N. (2004). “A new predictor for ground vibration prediction and its comparison with other predictors.” Indian J. Eng. Mater. Sci., 11(3), 178–184.
Roy, P. P. (1998). “Technical Note: Characteristics of ground vibrations and structural response to surface and underground blasting.” Geotech. Geol. Eng., 16(2), 151–166.
Roy, P. P. (2012). “A comprehensive assessment of ground vibrations and structural damage caused by blasting.” Rock fragmentation by blasting: Fragblast 10, P. K. Singh and A. Sinha, eds., CRC, Boca Raton, FL.
Singh, P. K., and Roy, M. P. (2010). “Damage to surface structures due to blast vibration.” Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci., 47(6), 949–961.
Singh, P. K., and Vogt, W. (1998). “Ground vibration: Prediction for safe and efficient blasting.” Erzmetall, 51(10), 677–684.
Siskind, D. E., Stagg, M. S., Kopp, J. W., and Dowding, C. H. (1980). “Structure response and damage produced by ground vibration from surface mine blasting.”, U.S. Bureau of Mines, Pittsburgh.
USGS (U.S. Geological Survey). (2013). Magnitude 2.1—Central Texas, Washington, DC.
Wu, C., and Hao, H. (2007). “Numerical simulation of structural response and damage to simultaneous ground shock and air-blast loads.” Int. J. Impact Eng., 34(3), 556–572.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 30 • Issue 4 • August 2016
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 2, 2014
Accepted: May 7, 2015
Published online: Jul 3, 2015
Discussion open until: Dec 3, 2015
Published in print: Aug 1, 2016
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.