Browsing by Author "Pickering, Erik G."

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    An empirical method for modelling the secondary shock from high explosives in the far-field
    (Springer, 2025-02) Rigby, Sam E.; Mendham, E.; Farrimond, Dain G.; Pickering, Erik G.; Tyas, Andrew; Pezzola, G.
    As the detonation product cloud from a high explosive detonation expands, an arresting flow is generated at the interface between these products and the surrounding air. Eventually this flow forms an inward-travelling shock wave which coalesces at the origin and reflects outwards as a secondary shock. Whilst this feature is well known and often reported, there remains no established method for predicting the form and magnitude of the secondary shock. This paper details an empirical superposition method for modelling the secondary shock, based on the physical analogy of the secondary loading pulse resembling the blast load from a smaller explosive relative to the original. This so-called dummy charge mass is determined from 58 experimental tests using PE4, PE8, and PE10, utilising Monte Carlo sampling to account for experimental uncertainty, and is found to range between 3.2–4.9% of the original charge mass. A further 18 “unseen” datapoints are used to rigorously assess the performance of the new model, and it is found that reductions in mean absolute error of up to 40%, and typically 20%, are achieved compared to the standard model which neglects the secondary shock. Accuracy of the model is demonstrated across a comprehensive range of far-field scaled distances, giving a high degree of confidence in the new empirical method for modelling the secondary shock from high explosives.
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    Blast wave ingress into a room through an opening – review of past research and US DoD UFC 3-340-02
    (SAGE Publications, 2024-10-19) Eytan, Alex; Forth, Shaun A.; Pickering, Erik G.; Hazael, Rachael; Burrows, Stephanie J.
    Blast wave ingress into a room through a facade opening results in complex pressure-time loadings on interior surfaces due to shock diffraction and interior reflections. The U.S. DoD UFC 3-340-02 Structures to Resist the Effects of Accidental Explosions includes a method to predict internal loading for such cases. Parameters such as the opening size, room dimensions and the external pressure wave characteristics influence the interior loading. Recent work suggests that the UFC methodology might overpredict the interior loading by some 600%. Such conservatism can result in over-engineered or prohibitively expensive protective solutions. In this paper we critically review the methodology of the UFC, that of Kaplan’s preceding work (on which the UFC relies), and the experimental data that informed both these works. Through a series of 45 case-studies we compare the UFC and Kaplan’s predictions with those of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. The UFC consistently overpredicts the CFD area-averaged peak pressure of the back wall by up to 290% and the side-wall by up to 425%. Similarly, the UFC overpredicted the CFD side wall positive phase impulse by up to 565%. By contrast, the UFC predicted back wall positive phase impulse was similar to the CFD results. As our CFD results for side and back walls are area averaged, and not solely for the wall centre-point, as in other recent work, our paper gives support for the use of CFD prediction over the UFC for cost-effective design of structures to resist blast ingress.