Executive Summary : | Concrete is a crucial construction material used in civil and military infrastructures to protect structures against extreme loading conditions like blast and impact. However, damages in certain components can cause disproportionate collapse, leading to significant property and live losses. With the increasing number of blast/bombing events, researchers are focusing on assessing the behavior and vulnerability of concrete structures. Structural materials and structures behave differently based on blast intensity and impact velocity due to inertia and strain-rate effects. This research aims to predict concrete structures' responses under drop-weight impact and contact detonations using experimental investigation and theoretical modeling techniques. The first stage involves exploring the shear failure mechanism of reinforced concrete (RC) beam through large-scale drop-weight impact testing facilities. The second stage involves mechanics-based theoretical investigation of concrete structures under impact loading, leading to the development of a novel GUI-based computer program in MATLAB/PYTHON environment. An arena blast test is proposed on RC panels under contact detonations to investigate local damage in terms of spalling and breaching. An analytical model based on shock physics theory, shock wave transmission and propagation in concrete, dynamic behavior of concrete and explosives, and equation of state (EOS) parameters of concrete is proposed. A GUI-based computer program will be developed for response prediction under contact explosions. The proposed work will provide a foothold in both fundamental and practical application aspects of concrete structures. |