Experimental determination of resistance of prefabricated metal structures to blast loads

Introduction. Emergency gas explosions occur at industrial facilities as well as in residential buildings. An analysis of normative documents in the field of explosion resistance of buildings and structures subject to an accidental gas explosion has been carried out which revealed a lack of requirements for their explosion resistance and methods of testing their resistance to a deflagration accidental explosion.

Objective. A team from the Institute of Comprehensive Construction Safety at the National Research Moscow State University of Civil Engineering (NRU MGSU) developed a test procedure for determining the resistance of prefabricated metal structures to a deflagration explosion of an air-gas mixture and conducted a study including two experiments and analysis of the results to determine the application of building envelopes in the field of explosion protection of buildings and structures against excessive pressure deflagration

Materials and methods. The researches have been carried out with the use of a test bench for light-load-bearing constructions according to GOST R 56289. Fabricated metal structures, consisting of 200-mm-thick wall sandwich-panels and metal frame of two steel pipes of 100-mm section were used as test specimens. In the course of the investigations, the failure of the locking joint of the panels and the complete failure of the enclosing structure were monitored.

Results and discussion. Studies have shown that with an overpressure of 17–18 kPa and the exposure time of blast load of at least 250 ms, a significant deformation of the structure with a residual deflection was observed. Complete destruction of the structure occurred at the intensity of the dynamic impact in a 45–47 kPa blast wave and the exposure time of the blast load about 400 ms.

Conclusions. It has been established that the prefabricated metal structure consisting of wall sandwich panels and a metal frame can be used as an explosion-proof protective fence at production facilities in the calculation of blast loads. Several variants of increasing resistance of the structure to deflagration explosion have been proposed.

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