Ductile Failure of Welded Connections to Corrugated Firewalls Subjected to Blast Loading

摘要

This paper presents a number of numerical and experimental investigations of large scale tests and simulations which have established that the weld between the corrugated panel and its supporting frame is critical when assessing the maximum containment pressure of standard firewalls subjected to blast loading. Avoiding having to model the weld in detail, a finite element technique based on limiting plastic strain has been proposed in order to predict the containment pressure of standard firewalls. Incorporating the presence of the surrounding structure in the model was found to be vital in order to obtain a realistic representation of the behaviour. A parametric study established safe containment pressures for a typical wall geometry over a broad range of load histories.