Air-blast and ground shockwave parameters, shallow underground blasting, on the ground and buried shallow underground blast-resistant shelters: A review

Weak political systems and poor governance in certain developing countries are found to have a war-like environment where structures are being targeted by blasts and bombs. Industrial blasts due to frail know-how and mishandlings are also quite common. Recent accidental explosions like that occurred at the Beirut Port, Lebanon (August 2020); ammunition depot in the outskirt of the Ryazan City of Russia (November 2020) are of concern for the safety of adjacent building infrastructure and their users. Such intense loading events cause damage to certain elements of a structure which may result in disproportionate or progressive collapse. It necessitates a clear understanding of the phenomenon of the blast and extreme loads induced out of it, and response of the target structure under such loadings. In this study, the state of research on air-blast and ground shockwave parameters, shallow underground blasting, and on the ground and buried shallow blast-resistant shelters are presented. The phenomenon of the self-Mach-reflection of the explosion, loading parameters and empirical blast models available in the open literature followed by the damage criteria for the buildings subjected to the underground blasting and available peak particle velocity (PPV) prediction models have been discussed. To make the application of advanced materials such as fibrous concrete, ultra-high performance concrete, FRP composites, etc., it is important to comprehend the existing blast/shock-resistant shelters and their response under such loading. The shelters are primarily designed by incorporating features of the materials like high degree of deformability/ductility, use of the shock-isolation panels and the mechanism for controlling crack formations. Finally, conclusions and recommendations for future studies are summarised. This paper presents prospects to engineers, town planners, researchers, policymakers and members of the core drafting sectional committees to understand the phenomenon of the blast and extreme loads induced out of it.

Unsteady Transition From a Mach to a Regular Shockwave Intersection

The purpose of this research work is to perform accurate numerical computations of supersonic flow in a converging nozzle and specifically to study Mach-disks. The latter process has been widely studied over the last years. In the present study numerical simulations are performed for transient supersonic flow, tracing the transition from a Mach reflection to a regular one. This has been done by enforcing the walls of a converging nozzle to come closer together, changing the deflection angle with time. Viscosity was taken into account and the full Navier- Stokes have been solved. The results obtained clearly show the gradual extinction of the Mach disk and the eventual wave intersection to a single point

A Study of the Dependence of the Mach Stem Height on the Trailing Edge Height

The Mach stem height is an important parameter in the Mach reflection of steady supersonic flow. Various experimental, numerical, and theoretical works have been conducted to study this parameter in the past. However, much of the established work focuses around a single set of trailing edge heights. Here, we perform a study to show the dependence of Mach stem height on the trailing edge height for a wider range of geometry. Through numerical simulation for a set of trailing edge heights, we found that the normalized Mach stem height is almost linear with respect to the normalized wedge trailing edge height. The parameter used for normalization can be either the inlet height or the length of the lower wedge surface. The observation of this linear trend is justified through a simplified analysis, which leads to an expression of the Mach stem height that linearly depends on the trailing edge height. The present study extends our knowledge about how the geometry affects the Mach stem height, and provides a basis for future work to elaborate analytical models for Mach stem height.

Approximate Analytical Models of Shock-Wave Structure at Steady Mach Reflection

In this study, we obtain the comparative analysis of methods of quick approximate analytical prediction of Mach shock height in planar steady supersonic flows (for example, in supersonic jet flow and in narrowing channel between two wedges), that are developed since the 1980s and being actively modernized now. A new analytical model based on flow averaging downstream curved Mach shock is proposed, which seems more accurate than preceding models, comparing with numerical and experimental data.

Onset of the Mach Reflection of Zel’dovich–von Neumann–Döring Detonations

The present study investigates the similarity problem associated with the onset of the Mach reflection of Zel’dovich–von Neumann–Döring (ZND) detonations in the near field. The results reveal that the self-similarity in the frozen-limit regime is strictly valid only within a small scale, i.e., of the order of the induction length. The Mach reflection becomes non-self-similar during the transition of the Mach stem from “frozen” to “reactive” by coupling with the reaction zone. The triple-point trajectory first rises from the self-similar result due to compressive waves generated by the “hot spot”, and then decays after establishment of the reactive Mach stem. It is also found, by removing the restriction, that the frozen limit can be extended to a much larger distance than expected. The obtained results elucidate the physical origin of the onset of Mach reflection with chemical reactions, which has previously been observed in both experiments and numerical simulations.

Influence of Cavity Width on Attenuation Characteristic of Gas Explosion Wave

This study aimed to investigate the influence of cavity width on the attenuation characteristic of gas explosion wave. Attenuation mechanism of gas explosion wave through cavity was obtained by numerical simulation. The gas explosion shock wave energy can be greatly attenuated through the cavity structure in five stages, namely, plane wave, expansion, oblique reflection, Mach reflection, and reflection stack, to ensure that it is eliminated. Cavities with various width sizes, namely, 500 ∗ 300 ∗ 200, 500 ∗ 500 ∗ 200, and 500 ∗ 800 ∗ 200 (length ∗ width ∗ height, unit: mm), were experimented to further investigate the attenuation characteristics through a self-established large-size pipe gas explosion experimental system with 200 mm diameter and 36 m length. Results showed an evident attenuation effect on flame duration light intensity (FDLI) and peak overpressure with increasing cavity width. Compared with 300 mm, the overall FDLI decreased by 83.0%, and the peak overpressure decreased by 71.2% when the cavity width was 800 mm. The fitting curves of the FDLI and peak overpressure attenuation factors to width-diameter demonstrated that the critical width-diameter was 2.19 when the FDLI attenuation factor was 1. The FDLI attenuation factor sharply decreased at the width-diameter ratio range from 1.5 to 2.5 and basically remained steady at 0.17 at the width-diameter ratio range from 2.7 to 4.0. The peak overpressure attenuation factor gradually decreased with the increase of width-diameter ratio and changed from 0.93 to 0.28 with width-diameter ratio from 1.5 to 4.0. The research results can serve as a good reference for the design of gas explosion wave-absorbing structures.