Blast Resistant Structures-A Review

Due to the rising threat of terrorism, protecting critical civil infrastructure such as embassies, government buildings, and airports against bomb attacks has become a critical issue. Therefore, there is a need for the development of technologies that can protect these structures against blast loads. Categories of available protection technologies currently include exterior steel cladding and the addition of concrete walls, and sprayed-on polymer and metallic foam cladding. Further, extremists are using newer chemicals and technological advancements that have increased blast event magnitudes. Therefore, in addition to strategically important and heritage structures, even important commercial buildings and complexes are required to be designed for an adequate level of blast resistance. On the other hand, blast-resistant design of structures is treated as a specialized area to which, commonly, structural engineers are not exposed comprehensively, and most of the knowledge about blast-resistant design of structures remains limited to military setups. Hence, it is intended herein to present various strategies for blast response mitigation and structural design of such protective structures. This report is meant for discussion of studies on blast resistant structure and blast loading.