Mitigation of Accidental Disasters in Fireworks Industries - Construction Management Approach

Manmade disasters due to accidental explosions while manufacturing fire crackers are reported very often in India. These accidental disasters also cause collapse of brick masonry structures leading to loss of human lives and infrastructure regularly. Existing construction guidelines lack any explosion resisting features and hence the need of framing appropriate explosion resistant construction guidelines was already highlighted. 1-4 The performance of brick masonry incorporating RCC horizontal bands at floor level, lintel level and vertical RCC bands at corners and door jambs was considered in this study. Alternate shapes of the model structure like square and hexagon were also considered in this study. The model structures were subjected to explosive loading as uniform pressure on wall surface. The studies were conducted using ANSYS software. Based on the threshold value of deflection as one tenth of wall thickness of brick masonry, an estimate of the quantity of chemicals that can be used in a manufacturing shed, for various explosion resisting features is suggested so that collapse of structures causing disasters can be minimized.