Semi-confined blast loading: experiments and simulations of internal detonations

Far-field blast loading has been studied extensively for decades. Close-in, confined, and semi-confined detonations less so, partly because it is difficult to obtain good experimental data. The increase in computational power in recent years has made it possible to conduct studies of this kind numerically, but the results of such simulations ultimately depend on experimental validation and verification. This work thus aims at using reliable experiments to validate and verify numerical models developed to represent blast loading in general. Test rigs consisting of massive steel cylinders with pressure sensors were used to measure the pressure profiles of semi-confined detonations with different charge sizes. The experimental data set was then used to assess numerical models appropriate for simulating blast loading. In general, the numerical results were in excellent agreement with the experimental data, in both qualitative and quantitative terms. These results may in turn be used to analyse structures exposed to internal blast loads, which constitutes the next phase of this research project.