Concrete structures under blast loading dynamic response, damage, and residual strength

The resilience of a city confronted with a terrorist bomb attack is the background of the paper. The resilience strongly depends on vital infrastructure and the physical protection of people. To judge the vulnerability, to assess the resilience, and identify effective countermeasures, risk assessment tools are needed. The paper starts with a general problem analysis and the approach that was defined by TNO to contribute to develop safety assessment tools. An important and basic element in tile safety chain is the passive protection layer, while in safety assessment, the residual functionality of the vital infrastructure is of major importance. Specific knowledge is needed to design effecttive passive protection and enable explosion damage prediction. Dedicated research has been defined in The Netherlands and addressed in this paper.