COMPUTATIONAL INVESTIGATION FOR OPTIMUM SHAPE OF STEEL BARRIERS UNDER BLAST

This paper targets the identification of the optimum shape of a special type of cantilever steel barriers to resist blast loading. To this end, three different scenarios of blast loading i.e., small, medium, and large charge weight are explored on two main categories of barriers same amount of material and same shelter height. Advanced dynamic analysis of the investigated barriers with different curvatures i.e., with different subtended angle at the center of the circular barriers is performed using hybrid-mixed shell model with geometric and material nonlinear capabilities. A new feature is added to the model to account for damping effects. Comparisons are made for different material constitutive models e.g., elastic and elasto-plastic with linear strain hardening. The range of applicability of the elastic analysis is also studied in order to identify the limit of charge weight at which the inelastic analysis is a must