Temporal and spatial pressure distribution characteristics of hemispherical shell structure subjected to external explosion

It is necessary to master the propagation and distribution of the overpressure on a building under an explosive load before an anti-explosion design is achieved. However, there is very less available test data which can be applicable to multi-curved large-span space structure under a surface burst. In this work, a series of tests were performed to study the wave diffraction behaviour of a hemispherical structure by changing the nearest distance between the charge and structure and TNT equivalent. The purpose of the experiment was to develop an experimental dataset which could evaluate the accuracy and efficiency of the numerical model. A simplified method to study the blast load distribution on the hemispherical structure was proposed by numerical and geometric analysis. The numerical results showed that the peak overpressure, impulse, blast wave front arrival time, and positive phase duration were highly dependent on the span–distance ratio and span–charge ratio, which affect the significance of the reflecting and shielding effects. For a convenient engineering application, a series of pseudo-analytical formulas were suggested to estimate the pressure–time histories for an ideal hemisphere structure.