The application of pressure–impulse curves in a blast exceedance analysis

Abstract

The magnitude of damage due to a vapor cloud explosion can be estimated in many ways, ranging from look-up tables to quantitative risk analysis. An explosion overpressure analysis is a routine part of compliance with the American Petroleum Institute (API) Recommended Practice (RP) 752 when evaluating occupied buildings in a facility that processes flammable or reactive materials. In many cases, a risk-based approach is useful because consequence modeling studies often indicate major problems for buildings at existing facilities. One of the most common risk-based methods, overpressure exceedance, incorporates a wide range of potential explosion scenarios coupled with the probability of each event to develop the probability of exceeding a given overpressure at specific locations. But this and other methods that only use overpressure may not represent an accurate building response. By combining the risk-based methodology of the exceedance analysis with pressure and impulse data in the form of pressure–impulse (P–I) curves, a better measure of building damage can be generated. P–I curves for blast loading determination have been in use for decades, and allow the user to determine levels of damage based on a predicted overpressure and its corresponding impulse. Curves have been published for entire buildings, individual structural members, window breakage, and even consequences to humans. This paper will explore application of P–I curves for building damage, and will highlight some of the benefits, as well as some of the potential problems, of using P–I curves.