Abstract
As the main structural component of partition wall or load-bearing wall, brick masonry has been widely used in construction engineering. However, brick and mortar are all brittle materials prone to crack. Nowadays, fireworks, gas stoves, high-pressure vessels, and other military explosives may explode to damage nearby structures. Many explosion casualties had shown that the load-bearing capacity of brick masonry decreased dramatically and cracks or fragments appeared. Previous studies mainly focused on noncontact explosion in which shock wave is the main damage element. In fact, the response and damage effect of brick masonry wall under contact explosion are more complex, which attracts more attention now. In order to explore the damage characteristics of brick masonry under explosion load, a series of simulations and verification experiments are conducted. RHT and MO granular material models are introduced to describe the behaviour of brick and masonry, respectively, in simulation. The combination effect of front compressive wave and back tensile wave are main factors influencing the breakage of masonry wall. The experimental results are well in accordance with the simulation results. The front cross section dimension of crater is closely related to the radius of spherical explosive charge. A power function predictive model is developed to express the relationship between the radius of hole and the radius of explosive. Furthermore, with increasing the quantity of explosive charge, the number and ejection velocity of fragments are all increased. The relationship between maximum ejection velocity and the quantity of explosive also can be expressed as a power function model.
Highlights
Brick masonry is a composite structure which consists of brick, mortar, and brick-mortar interfaces
When the brick masonry is impacted by the explosion of 2.0 kg composition 4 (C4) spherical charge, the zone suffered from severe impact is damaged to form a crater
Seen from the viewpoint of energy, the more quantity of explosive is used, the higher explosive energy loading on the surface of masonry wall is produced, and the higher the velocity of fragment gets. at is to say, the ejection velocities of fragments are determined by the radius of explosive too for spherical explosive charge. e fragment with maximum ejection velocity is found at the centre of crater or the apex of crater before breakup
Summary
Brick masonry is a composite structure which consists of brick, mortar, and brick-mortar interfaces. Dennis et al [10] conducted both five dynamic experiments to analyse the response and failure of one-way 1/4-scale reinforced masonry walls to blast loads. Ahmad et al [11] carried out six tests to study the resistance of brick masonry wall exposed to varying blast load at different scaled distances. Zhou et al [14] simulated the damage and fragmentation of a typical masonry wall under blast loading at different scaled distances. Few researches had been done to study the response of brick masonry under contact explosion loads. A series of numerical simulations and experiments are carried out to study the structural response and damage characteristics of brick masonry wall under contact explosion loads. The fragmentation and maximum ejection velocities of brick masonry under different conditions are studied
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