Explosion at an intersection in an Urban Environment – Experiments and analyses

Paper in proceeding, 2007

This paper describes the experimental and numerical investigation of an explosion in an intersection built up of four concrete boxes. Scaled experiments (1:5) with a total of eight charges (0.4 and 1.6 kg) of PETN detonated at various locations and were registered using a total of 25 pressure gauges. The experimental results were used to validate numerical simulations made in the explicit code AUTODYNTM prior to the experimental performance. An automatic remapping procedure used in the simulations is briefly described and a coherence measure to compare experimental and numerical results is introduced. It is concluded that AUTODYN managed very well to predict the blast load obtained in a complex urban environment.