Masters Theses

Abstract

"The study examined the mitigating effects of a blast barrier wall. This area of blast mitigation is of interest due to the many different applications involved in protecting a specific target from an explosive attack. The research follows a 1:50 scale layout using 73 gram, hemisphere-shaped, Composition-4 charges detonated at combinations of three standoff distances from a blast barrier wall set at three different heights. This project used 45 data points for each combination of standoff distance and wall height. This project expanded prior research conducted by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) by increasing the database of recorded pressures behind a barrier wall and finding that a barrier wall creates an elongated effect on the pressure reduction area behind the wall. In other words, the pressure reduction area extends more along the wall than it does away from the wall.

The results of further study indicate how and to what extent the wall affects the pressures created by the detonation of the Composition-4 hemispheres in the regions selected. The distance at which the blast pressures were mitigated was affected by the wall height and standoff distance. The wall height had a greater impact on the extent of the percent pressure reduction than did the standoff distance; however, the standoff distance has the greatest effect on the magnitude of the pressures behind a barrier wall.

In the end, it is hoped that the analysis contained in this thesis will aid in future investigations of blast barrier walls and lead to more in-depth analyses and the creation of more complex models to predict the effects of blast barrier walls on detonation shocks and pressures from charges detonated at finite distances from the walls"--Abstract, page iii.

Advisor(s)

Baird, Jason, 1955-

Committee Member(s)

Worsey, Paul Nicholas
Awuah-Offei, Kwame, 1975-

Department(s)

Mining Engineering

Degree Name

M.S. in Explosives Engineering

Publisher

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Publication Date

Summer 2010

Pagination

viii, 64 pages

Rights

© 2010 Nathan Thomas Rouse, All rights reserved.

Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

File Type

text

Language

English

Subject Headings

Buildings -- Blast effects
Explosives -- Testing
Structural analysis (Engineering)

Thesis Number

T 9683

Print OCLC #

691271811

Electronic OCLC #

752183709

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