Simulating blast effects on steel beam-column members: Applications

Validation and application examples are presented for a beam-column element that uses bounding surface plasticity models to characterize the effects of blast-induced damage in structures with steel wide-flange members. Element formulation and implementation within the nonlinear explicit dynamic finite element code CU-BAMM appears in the companion paper . The current paper details the creation of a library of bounding surfaces for various wide-flange members and explosive scenarios, and library integration with the code. A validation example shows favorable agreement between CU-BAMM simulation results and results obtained from a high-resolution model for prediction of the post-blast collapse load for an A-frame system.