Validation of Rigid-Plastic Model for Skeletal Structures under Blast Loading

Abstract

This paper proposes a simplified rigid-plastic model for determining the dynamic response of skeletal structures under blast loading. The proposed numerical formalism is an extension of the previously developed model of Khan A et al [1] to investigate the impact behaviour, which is validated for studying the effects of blast loading on skeletal structures. For this purpose, three verification examples are studied. In the first example, a generic theoretical solution is sought for a simply supported beam excited by a uniformly distributed linearly decaying triangular pulse load of varying magnitudes. The numerical and theoretical results are presented and contrasted. In the second study, the dynamic response of a single-story steel portal frame is investigated when the blast load is applied to one of the leg members. This time the result of the proposed model is validated by comparing the maximum deflection with the finite element model developed in ABAQUS. The final validation is made by comparing the experimental results of permanent transverse deformation of blast loaded reinforced concrete beams with the proposed model. The results show that the prediction of the current model is in satisfactory agreement with the experimental results obtained from the literature.