Performance assessment of seismically-designed steel moment-resisting structures against numerically-simulated blast wave propagation

The main goal of this research is the performance evaluation of the sampled moment-resisting steel structure against 3D simulated blast loading. In the first stage of the present research, the numerically simulated blast wave is verified by comparing with the relevant renowned numerical and experimental previous researches. In the second stage, the sensitivity of blast-induced pressure to the finite element mesh size and the surrounding air cube dimensions are investigated considering the 3D one-story building block with real dimensions based on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) using AUTODYN hydrocode. The innovation of this stage is to present the optimum mesh size and air cube dimensions for the numerical results compared with the relevant empirical relationships toward the realistic simulation of blast-induced pressure on structures. Finally, in the last stage, the performances of two seismically-designed buildings with 1 and 10 stories against the achieved numerical blast-induced pressure time histories and the empirical formulations, based on the UFC 3-340-02 guideline, are studied. To assess the structural performance, the sampled buildings are modeled using the finite element tool OpenSEES. Performance assessment of sampled structures reveals that empirical formulation of blast loading will lead to underestimation of structural response, especially for the lower scaled distance scenarios.