Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Engineering - Department of Civil Engineering

Accidental explosions have been witnessed and recorded with increasing rate around the globe. The effect of those explosions on civil structures and infrastructures is a point of interest for engineers and researchers to safeguard and protect lives and other assets. From here comes the importance of understanding different kinds of explosives that may threaten the target of interest. Blast wall barriers are one of the physical protective measures that are used as sacrificial elements to reduce the potential of risk caused by explosion on the structures behind. They also work as anti-ram element by obstructing vehicles to impact the structure. This research focuses on and deals with the behavior of concrete blast wall barriers that may be either rested on ground or anchored (fixed) to the ground by several means. Three different walls with three different geometrical surfaces exposed to the blast loading are studied under the effect of different levels of blast loading. The base of wall can be considered fully fixed in ground by forming pockets and laying the walls inside. In addition, the concave curved concrete wall is investigated under small charges in order to investigate the stability of wall in case it was rested on ground. A new method to clamp the base of the concave curved wall to ground to reduce the damaging effect of blast is proposed and evaluated in this research. All Charges are considered placed on ground surface producing surface blast wave. The three walls represent three different surfaces (i.e. vertical straight surface, concave surface and convex surface)

Issued also as CD