The Effect of Prestressing on the Dynamic Response of Concrete Slabs under Blast Loading

This study has been conducted to investigate the ability of prestressed concrete slabs against explosion with passive defense objectives by the structural method. In this research, one-way and two-way concrete slabs have been modeled with Abaqus finite element software.  The dynamic analysis has been performed by the explicit step-by-step time history method. The non-linear plastic failure model has been used for the concrete behavior, whilst a linear model has been used for the steel and prestressed tendons. Explosive loading has been applied to the slab samples experimentally using the CONWEP model and free boundary conditions have been defined for the edges of the studied slabs. The results of the finite element model shows that the maximum stress in prestressed concrete reaches three times the stress experienced in the reinforced concrete. Also, prestressing the slab reduces the maximum deformation by about 3 cm compared to the reinforced concrete slab. The results show that the behavior of concrete against explosion is remarkably improved by prestressing. However, the optimal amount of prestressing and the distance of the tendons required to improve the slab behavior against explosion, can be calculated through more modeling. It can be said with certainty that prestressing is a good way to improve the behavior of slabs against explosion in explosion-proof defensive fortifications. The results show that the effect of slab geometry, whether it is one-way or two-way and the location of the explosion, affect the values of stress and deflection due to the explosive load.