Experimental and numerical study of a RC member under a close-in blast loading

In recent years, many attacks all over the world have shown that terrorism related activity is dramatically increasing. In this context, columns are the most critical structural components and their failure is the primary cause for progressive collapse in framed structures. The effects of near-field explosions on structural elements, especially columns, have not been widely investigated in the literature. Therefore, the main objectives of this paper are: to evaluate the effectiveness of a numerical model to replicate the experimental damages of reinforced concrete (RC) columns subjected to close-in blast loading; to obtain modelling guidelines for this phenomenon and to provide quality experimental data that could be used as a reference to check the accuracy of a variety of calculation methods. For these purposes, RC members were subjected to a near field explosion in full scale. Experimental tests and numerical simulations are carried out in order to calibrate the numerical model. In this context, a new set of parameters for the constitutive equations of the concrete is proposed and verified.