Damage mechanism and stress response of reinforced concrete slab under blast loading

Abstract

The numerical investigations have been carried out on reinforced concrete slab against blast loading to demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the finite element based numerical models using commercial package ABAQUS. The response of reinforced concrete slab have been studied against the influence of weight of TNT, standoff distance, boundary conditions, influence of air blast and surface blast. The results thus obtained from simulations were compared with the experiments available in literature. The inelastic behavior of concrete and steel reinforcement bar has been incorporated through concrete damage plasticity model and Johnson-cook models available in ABAQUS were presented. The predicted results through numerical simulations of the present study were found in close agreement with the experimental results. The damage mechanism and stress response of target were assessed based on the intensity of deformations, impulse velocity, von-Mises stresses and damage index in concrete. The results indicate that the standoff distance has great influence on the survivability of RC slab against blast loading. It is concluded that the velocity of impulse wave was found to be decreased from 17 to 11 m/s when the mass of TNT is reduced from 12 to 6 kg. It is observed that the maximum stress in the concrete was found to be in the range of 15 to 20 N/mm2 and is almost constant for given charge weight. The slab with two short edge discontinuous end condition was found better and it may be utilised in designing important structures. Also it is observed that the deflection in slab by air blast was found decreased by 60% as compared to surface blast.