Study of Different Materials to Mitigate Blast Energy for the Tunnel Subjected to Buried Explosion

Abstract

AbstractIn the present study, performance of different materials for mitigating the energy imparted on tunnel subjected to buried explosion is investigated. Explosive is located laterally to a box-shaped tunnel and blast damage is measured in terms of lateral deflection of tunnel wall facing the explosion. Three different energy absorbing materials have been considered herein, namely, porous concrete, polymeric syntactic foam and closed cell aluminum foam (ACCF). A series of numerical simulation is conducted to carry out the comparative study adopting Multi-Material Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (MM-ALE) method using commercially available computer program LS-DYNA®. Explosive and soil are modeled using Eulerian formulation while concrete and reinforcement bars of tunnel are modeled using Lagrangian element formulation. Jones-Wilkins-Lee (JWL) equation of state has been used to simulate the detonation of explosive. Soil has been modeled as two parts with different element formulation techniques. The part surrounding explosive is modeled using Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) formulation and the other part surrounding structure is modeled using Lagrangian formulation. The material perform effectively in reducing the effect of blast loading on the structure. The blast response of bare tunnel is finally compared with tunnels fitted with different energy absorbing materials considered herein.KeywordsBuried explosionMitigationPorous concretePolymeric syntactic foamClosed cell aluminum foam