Blast Wave Reflections

ABSTRACT The threats of bomb attacks by criminal organizations and accidental events involving chemical explosives are a danger to the people and buildings. Due the severity of these issues and the need of data required for a safety design, more research is required about explosions and shock waves. This paper presents an assessment of blast wave overpressures using a computational fluid dynamics software. Analyses of phenomena as reflection of shock waves and channeling effects were done and a comparison between numerical results and analytical predictions has been executed, based on the simulation on several models. The results suggest that the common analytical predictions aren’t accurate enough for an overpressure analysis in small stand-off distances and that poorly designed buildings may increase the shock wave overpressures due multiple blast wave reflections, increasing the destructive potential of the explosions.

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On the ongoing quest to pinpoint the location of RR-MR transition in blast wave reflections

Shock Waves ◽

10.1007/978-3-540-85181-3_107 ◽

2009 ◽

pp. 1455-1460 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

H. Kleine ◽

E. Timofeev ◽

A. Gojani ◽

M. Tetreault-Friend ◽

K. Takayama

Keyword(s):

Blast Wave ◽

Wave Reflections

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Blast Wave Reflection From Wedges

Journal of Fluids Engineering ◽

10.1115/1.1567310 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 125 (3) ◽

pp. 510-519 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

O. Igra ◽

G. Hu ◽

J. Falcovitz ◽

W. Heilig

Keyword(s):

Shock Wave ◽

Blast Wave ◽

Wave Reflection ◽

Initial Pressure ◽

Wave Pattern ◽

Reflected Shock Wave ◽

Pressure Jump ◽

Wave Reflections ◽

Reflected Shock ◽

Incident Waves

While a lot of attention was given to shock wave reflections from wedges during the past four decades, only little work was published regarding the similar case of blast wave reflection from wedges. In the present paper this subject is studied experimentally and theoretically/numerically. The obtained results show that the geometry of the reflected wave pattern is similar in the two cases when both incident waves have the same initial pressure jump across their fronts. However, different reflected pressure signatures (history) are observed in these two cases. The pressures obtained behind a reflected shock wave are always higher than those obtained behind the corresponding similar blast wave. In the present case differences as high as 17% were observed.

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