Numerical simulation of ultra high performance fibre reinforced concrete panels subjected to underwater blast loading

Underwater blast is a destructive phenomenon for offshore and onshore structures, so it is highly important to design these structures to bear explosive loads. This study has evaluated the performance of fiber reinforced concretes against air blast and underwater blast loadings. For this puropse, the performance of fiber reinforced concretes against explosive loading was analyzed while including the strain rate effect. In this way, two numerical models CONWEP explosion function and arbitrary Euler–Lagrange method were used for air blast, and results were then compared with data from full-scale blast test. A single degree of freedom system was used to validate data for underwater blast obtained through the arbitrary Euler–Lagrange method. Panels displacement results showed that the CONWEP, Euler–Lagrange and single degree of freedom system numerical modeling methods had a difference smaller than 13.3% with experimental results. Additionally, results showed underwater blast led to larger displacements in reinforced concretes up to about 74 mm and more destructive damages to concrete panels than air blast. The amount of rebars had a direct contribution compared to the fiber percentage.