Evaluating long duration blast loads on steel columns using computational fluid dynamics.pdf (2.97 MB)
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journal contribution
posted on 2019-02-19, 13:44 authored by Jack Denny, Simon ClubleyLong-duration blasts are typically defined by positive pressure durations exceeding 100ms (Denny & Clubley, 2019; Johns & Clubley, 2016). Such blasts can generate dynamic pressures (blast winds) capable of exerting damaging drag loads on comparatively slender structural components such as columns. With limited drag coefficient availability for specific structural geometries, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) can be the only satisfactory approach for analysing blast loading on user-specified, finite geometries. The ability to analyse long-duration blasts with commercially available CFD programs is still not confidently offered, with no prior studies examining the accuracy of modelling interaction with relatively much smaller, finite geometries. This paper presents a comparative investigation between numerical and experimental results to assess the predictive capacity of inviscid Eulerian CFD as a method for calculating long-duration blast drag loading on finite cross-section geometries. Full-scale long-duration blast experiments successfully measured surface pressure-time histories on a steel I-section column aligned at four orientations. Calculated pressure-time histories on exposed geometry surfaces demonstrated good agreement although reduced accuracy and under-prediction occurred on shielded surfaces manifesting as overestimated net loading. This study provides new understanding and awareness of the numerical capability and limitations of using CFD to calculate long-duration blast loads on intricate geometries.
Funding
The authors wish to thank the UK EPSRC and AWE plc for financial support.
History
School
- Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering
Published in
Structure and Infrastructure EngineeringVolume
15Issue
11Pages
1419 - 1435Citation
DENNY, J.W. and CLUBLEY, S.K., 2019. Evaluating long-duration blast loads on steel columns using computational fluid dynamics. Structure and Infrastructure Engineering, 15 (11), pp.1419-1435.Publisher
Taylor & Francis (Routledge) © Crown Owned CopyrightVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Acceptance date
2019-02-10Publication date
2019-07-05Notes
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.ISSN
1573-2479Publisher version
Language
- en