Behavior of RC Buildings under Blast Loading: Case Study

Abstract

In recent years, civil wars and terror activities have caused blast-loading effects on reinforced concrete buildings, resulting in catastrophic human and material damage. When a building is exposed to a blast load, a very high air pressure affects the building within a very short duration. To decide on the reconstruction or retrofit of a building exposed to blast loading, the behavior of the building under blast loading should be investigated. In this paper a case study of a RC building exposed to blast loading during the Libyan war in the last years was investigated. Nonlinear analysis results indicate that the failure mode is localized and that most structural elements remain elastic after explosions. The paper presents, building description details, material tests, finite element model and nonlinear analysis results.