Behavior of historic masonry structures subjected to blast: testing, constitutive modeling and applications

Author(s): Paulo B. Lourenco
Paper category: Proceedings
Book title: Proceedings of the International RILEM Conference Materials, Systems and Structures in Civil Engineering 2016 segment on
Historical Masonry
Editor(s): Inge Rörig-Dalgaard and Ioannis Ioannou
ISBN: 978-2-35158-178-0
e-ISBN: 978-2-35158-179-7
Publisher: RILEM Publications SARL
Publication year: 2016
Pages: 24-24
Total Pages: 1
Language : English

Abstract: In general, terrorism is defined as a pre-planned, deliberate and criminal act of violence
against targets including civilians, infrastructures, public services, and information, to create
terror and influence the people. Depending upon the detonating charge weight, blast site
situation and site crowd, the terrorist attacks can bring a wide range of casualties and material
losses.
The strain rate effect influences the properties of most construction materials. However,
studies on masonry materials such as clay bricks cannot be found in the literature easily.
Understanding the strain rate effect on masonry materials is important for proper modelling
and assessment of masonry structures under high velocity impacts or blast loads. A Drop
Weight Impact Machine will be used to obtain the strain rate effect on the ultimate strength,
Young’s modulus and strain at ultimate strength. Subsequently, a newly developed test setup
for dynamic out-of-plane loading using under Water Blast Wave Generators as loading source
will be presented. This allows a wide range for the produced blast impulse and surface area
distribution. It also avoids the generation of high velocity fragments and reduces atmospheric
sound wave.
In addition, a dynamic constitutive material interface model and an anisotropic model with
high strain rate effects, implemented in the finite element code ABAQUS as a user
subroutine, will be presented. First, the models’ capabilities are validated with numerical
simulations of unreinforced block work masonry walls subjected to impact, with relevant
conclusions. Finally, applications are shown to the railway infrastructure in Portugal and the
Al-Askari shrine in Iraq, which was subjected to two attacks.

Online publication : 2016
Publication type : full_text
Public price (Euros) : 0.00