Calculation of Blast Loads for Application to Structural Components

This technical guide published by the European Commission[1] provides an overview of a design procedure for structures under blast loading. It is addressed to design engineers offering ways to estimate blast loading on structures and on their response under such types of actions. Indicative examples of structures under explosive loads are analysed in order to provide designers with practical guidance on how to deal with similar cases.

This report is based on empirical methods for the prediction of blast loads - several formulas, graphs and diagrams have been included, which makes this guide sufficiently self-contained. Case studies have also been worked out in order to demonstrate through simplified examples the steps that must be followed for the calculation of blast pressures.

More complicated cases of blast loading, where obstacles are involved and wave shadowing and channelling phenomena take place, cannot be handled through this approach. More comprehensive mathematical tools, e.g. explicit finite elements codes, will have to be employed for calculating blast pressures, at the expense of added complexity and computation time.

This technical report is freely availble online: http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC87200/lbna26456enn.pdf