Eric J. Miklaszewski

Experimental Investigation of Blast Mitigation for Target Protection

An explosion yielding a blast wave can cause catastrophic damage to a building and its personnel. This threat defines an immediate importance for understanding blast mitigation techniques via readily available materials. An unconfined mass of water in the form of a free flowing sheet is one possible readily available mitigant. This chapter focuses narrowly on the protection of high-valued structures and other large targets where removal from the threat zone is often impossible. In these situations, methods are needed to dissipate and reflect incoming blast waves and mitigate damage potential. Any proposed mitigation method must be evaluated for effectiveness, and while steady advances in computational physics have been made in this area, experimentation remains crucial. Therefore, this chapter emphasizes experimental methods for evaluation of blast mitigation, both from a practical and fundamental standpoint. In addition, some of the capabilities of current computational methods are highlighted. The chapter begins with a review of the underlying physics. This is followed by a brief overview of experimental methods. Finally, the remainder of the chapter is dedicated to recent experimental and computational results for a potential configuration involving protective water sheets.

Experimental analysis of blast mitigation associated with water sheets

An explosion yielding a blast wave can cause catastrophic damage to a building and its personnel. This threat defines an immediate importance for understanding blast mitigation techniques via readily available materials. An unconfined mass of water in the form of a free flowing sheet has been experimentally tested and analyzed as a readily available mitigant. A single water sheet, with an approximate sheet thickness of 3 mm, was experimentally tested with an explosively driven shock tube at three different standoff distances. At the strongest shock strength considered, the water sheet decreased the peak overpressure of the blast wave by 80% and the impulse by 60%. Additionally, the peak overpressure transmitted through the water sheet was roughly constant regardless of standoff distance and explosive strength.