Raymond Lumantarna

Investigations of Cavity Pressure Behaviors of Double-Skin Façade Systems Subjected to Blast Loads

AbstractThe main function of a facade system is to provide comfort and protection to occupants inside the building. Glass facades are susceptible to severe damage due to their direct exposure to extreme loading conditions, such as blast. There is increasing popularity in the application of double-skin facade systems (DSFSs) in modern facade construction practice due to their high energy efficiency. In addition, when designed correctly, DSFSs exhibit a potentially higher capacity for blast resistance as opposed to single-layer facade systems. However, due to the complex fluid–structure interaction (FSI) between DSFSs and blast waves, there is a lack of design codes that address the structural response of DSFSs subjected to blast pressures. Understanding the behavior of the pressure within the DSFS cavity will facilitate the analysis of the blast performance of DSFSs. This paper reports an experimental program on analogical DSFSs made of steel as opposed to glazing panels, subjected to 250-kg equivalent TNT...

Numerical simulation of structural responses to a far-field explosion

Abstract The evaluation of structural responses under blast loading is very important in the protective design of buildings. Current standards can be used to assess the blast performance of simple structural configurations, such as a rectangular block. When the geometry of the target structure is irregular, the above methods are invalid. The advantage of computational fluid dynamics codes, such as Air3D, is that it can evaluate blast loadings on complex structures. However, it cannot predict the response of structures. In order to address the limitations of current approaches in evaluating the response of structures under blast loading, numerical simulations of high explosives and their interactions with the structure were carried out. This study presents the simulation of a far-field explosion using the arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian multi-material formulation in the finite element software LS-DYNA. The blast–structure interaction function was adopted to simulate the structural responses under blast pressures. The results from the numerical analysis were validated against experimental data and theoretical approaches. The presented approach is shown to be a useful tool for obtaining the structural responses under far-field explosions. A case study is then carried out to highlight the necessity of using numerical simulations to evaluate the structural responses under blast loads.

Protective structures research at the University of Melbourne

Infrastructure engineering research at the University of Melbourne covers various subjects such as safe and sustainable structures, steel connections, high-strength concrete, earthquake engineering, dynamics of structures, and protective structures. The protective structures research group focuses on development of innovative and effective mitigation technologies for the protection of infrastructure from extreme human-caused acts and natural disasters. This paper presents the developments and future challenges in protective structures research, which falls within the scope of performance of structural components subjected to accidental or intentional blast effects, and the mitigation of these effects. The research group branches out into several key areas of interest such as performance and mitigation of structures against blast pressures, and glazing facade performance assessment under blast pressures. Developments of both analytical and experimental approaches in the key areas of interest will also be presented in this paper through a review of blast trials conducted in Woomera. Firstly, the loading characteristics were established in the blast trials and the analysis phase. Secondly, once the loading conditions were established the performance of local components (such as blast panels, concrete beams and facade components) was analysed. In this part, the performances of the modelling approach were assessed in comparison to the experimental results. The final part of this paper presents a study to establish the global behaviour of structures subjected to blast effects.