State-of-the-Art Blast-Resistant Design of Airports: Innovative Analytical Methodologies and Tools

Abstract

Airports, and in particular terminal buildings, present a real challenge for security and protective design engineers. The requirements for excellent accessibility, via road and rail connections, results in significant explosive threat vectors with few opportunities to provide adequate stand-off distances. Indeed, in terms of transportation infrastructure, airports present some of the most complex threat environments and present a real and credible target for malevolent attack, as has been proved by numerous case studies over the last few decades. When this complex threat environment is combined with architectural drivers to maintain accessible and open spaces to ease passenger flow and provide interesting and iconic structures, the headache for protective design engineers becomes more acute. This paper will present the state-of-the-art analysis methodologies and tools to design blast resistant airport structures and describe how their application can reduce human vulnerability, structural damage, and operational disruption. These tools include the employment of engineering-scale computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes for the calculation of airblast loads, with the ability to model propagation through failing surfaces and complex external and internal geometries, including the potential effects of channeling. The paper will discuss the development of effective analysis tools to characterize contact and near-contact detonations against critical structural elements, as well as fast running models (FRMs) to facilitate analysis and protective design for these extremely challenging scenarios. Finally, a discussion of innovative design and retrofit options to increase the blast resistance of airport structures will be detailed, with a description of the testing programs used to validate these technologies.