Performance-based blast-resistant design of building structure components

In China, performance-based design method has been used in the field of seismic design, but not in the field of blast-resistant design yet. This article introduces the performance-based design method into the field of blast-resistant structural design and proposes a performance-based blast-resistant design method. Some key issues during design were highlighted and a general design idea and procedure were proposed. Then, the RC column was chosen as an example, the loss of axial load bearing capacity was chosen as the performance level parameter and three performance levels were determined. By setting typical blast scenarios, the explosion intensity levels were determined. For different types of buildings, two performance objectives were determined. The loss of load carrying capacity of RC columns under different explosion intensity levels were analyzed using existing research results. Then, a design method based on the loss of load carrying capacity was proposed. Based on the determined performance objectives and the design method, the performance-based blast-resistant design of the RC columns was proposed. At the end of this paper, a design of RC columns was presented in order to describe the performance-based blast-resistant design method. © 2016, Engineering Mechanics Press. All right reserved.