Craters Produced by Explosive Loads Carried on Vehicles

Abstract

In case of terrorist attacks or other intentional actions using explosives, it is extremely important the information that can be obtained from the crater generated by the blast waves. For example, the focus of the explosion and the mass of the explosive used in the attack can be deduced examining the location and dimensions of the crater. However, studies about craters produced by explosions on or above ground level, which would be the case when the explosive charge is carried on a vehicle, are rarely found in the open technical literature. In previous papers from the authors, numerical studies related to crater produced by explosive loads located on, above or below the soil surface, the influence of the variability of the soil properties and the influence of rigid and flexible pavement on the crater dimensions, were presented. In those papers, only the explosive load without any obstacle was considered in the model. In this paper, the effect of the consideration of the vehicle in the global model is analyzed and discussed. Different parts of the numerical model, as well as the analysis procedure, were validated with experimental observations of the crater diameters and the actual response of a concrete plate.