Blast Protection of Civil Infrastructures and Vehicles Using Composites

With the upsurge in terrorism and with it, blast threats, there is growing interest in manufacturing blast-hardened structures and retrofitting blast mitigation materials to existing structures. Composites provide the ideal material for blast protection as they can be engineered to give different levels of protection by varying the reinforcements and matrices.

Blast Protection of Civil Infrastructures and Vehicles Using Composites provides engineers and those concerned with public safety with a standard reference to meet the needs of those in the civil and military sectors.

Part one discusses general technical issues covering topics such as blast threats and types of blast damage, processing polymer matrix composites for blast protection, standards and specifications for composite blast protection materials, high energy absorbing composite materials for blast resistant design, modeling the blast response of hybrid laminated composite plates and the response of composite panels to blast wave pressure loadings.

Part two reviews applications including ceramic matrix composites for ballistic protection of vehicles and personnel, using composites to protect military vehicles from mine blasts, blast protection of buildings using FRP matrix composites, using composites in blast resistant walls for offshore, naval and defense related structures, using composites to improve the blast resistance of columns in buildings, retrofitting using fibre reinforced polymer composites for blast protection of buildings and retrofitting to improve the blast response of concrete masonry walls.

Dr. Nasim Uddin is an Associate Professor of Civil Engineering in the School of Engineering at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.