Organisers: Prof. Genevieve Langdon & Dr. Samuel Rigby, University of Sheffield, UK
Emails: genevieve.langdon@sheffield.ac.uk ; sam.rigby@sheffield.ac.uk
Summary: The threat of high explosive detonations to public safety has become an increasingly prominent concern. Explosions arising from industrial accidents or terrorist activity have caused loss of life, injuries, infrastructure damage and uncertainty in the minds of the general public. Engineers now need to consider explosion loading and structural response when designing structures ranging from transportation to urban buildings. This session focuses on two aspects of explosions:
- The explosion loading itself, including: blast parameter characterisation; fireball evolution; blast waves and overpressure loading; near-field and far-field effects; explosion and propagation media considerations; confinement; particle dispersion and additive effects; buried explosions.
- The material and structural behaviour arising from explosions, including: measurement and prediction of initial velocity profiles; elastic and inelastic deformation of structures; fluid-structure interaction considerations; material characterisation at elevated temperature and strain rates; failure mode characterisation and predictions; novel materials (such as next generation composites, lattices); large scale predictions.
Papers are invited that cover any aspect of explosion loading and response characteristics. Papers may be experimental, empirical, analytical and/or computational in nature (or any combination of these). There will be opportunities for round table discussions on future research directions within this field.