Evaluation of Blast Loads on Reinforced Concrete Structures with Finite Elements

Explosive phenomena on concrete structures have catastrophic effects in many instances despite its reduced occurrence. The civil buildings are usually not designed to withstand this type of dynamic load, so a methodology to analyze the structural response on blast loads is recommended. This paper studies the behavior of reinforced concrete frame structures against these actions by lagrangian finite elements method with explicit time integration. Finite element models of segregated concrete and rebar are used to make possible the study of structure parts as columns and slabs, but is not possible to use these detailed models in complete structures because of excessive computational costs. Shell and beam elements models properly calibrated are needed to obtain a similar response. Conclusions and practical recommendations are provided for the use and calibration of models and realistic simulations.