Project No.

NA

Blast Resistant Design of Structures using Advanced Materials and Systems

Supervisors: A. K Darpe (Mechanical Engineering) V Matsagar (Civil Engineering) T Chakraborty (Civil Engineering)

The need to protect civil and military structures against the effects of explosions has been increased in the recent years. Blast load can cause significant damage to infrastructure and loss of property. New computational tools and methodologies are being experimented and tested for improving blast resistance of the structures. The sensitive equipment and personnel working on defence-related platforms in both above- and underground conditions need to be protected or isolated from the effects of blast. The effects of blast on the structures could be in different nature, however two major cause of structural destruction are: (a) direct high pressure applied laterally, and (b) the dynamic ground motion induced, similar to earthquake-induced vibrations.

This doctoral research work will include protecting by hardening and isolating the above- and underground infrastructure from the effects of blast loads using advanced engineered materials, sandwich composite structural systems, and structural mechanisms. This will be extended to conduct numerical simulation of the newly developed composite materials applied at system level, to be used for usage in both the above- and underground infrastructure. Hence, structural performance predictions will be made on the basis of the simulation results and experimental data. The simulations will be based on finite element approach, wherein calibration will be made with the material characterisation data.

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