Review of research on strengthened concrete structures subjected to impulse and blast loading

Report, 2014

It is of growing interest to innovate the structural design of fortifications, not only in military context, but also in civil applications. There is ongoing research in Sweden on concrete structures subjected to impact loading. The research done at universities is mostly directed to normal concrete and numerical studies. However, as the building materials develop and the area of applications steer towards strengthening of existing structures, it is of interest to expand the current research to also include other types of building materials, especially steel fibre reinforced concrete and high strength concrete. The purpose of this project was to make a summary of ongoing research of strengthening of concrete structures subjected to impact loading and its aim is to collect, analyse and summarise existing knowledge. This research project was made as a meta-analysis. The two most common scientific databases have been searched for publication. In the report, the material response as well as the responses of different concrete compositions are discussed, compared and evaluated. The result shows that the current research questions on concrete subjected to blast loading involve the material response of “new” concrete compositions, such as high strength and fibre reinforced concrete. In the experiments, the common approach is either a split-Hopkinson bar or a drop-weight test.