Craters Produced By Explosions On The Soil Surface.

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 situated in a vehicle, are rarely
found in the open technical literature. In this paper, a numerical study related to
crater produced by explosive loads located on the soil surface is presented. The soil
parameters used in the numerical model as well as the analysis procedure were
validated against experimental observations of the crater diameters. Results of
numerical tests performed with different amounts of explosive on the soil surface are
presented. Moreover, the effect of elevation of the center of energy release of explosive
loads located on the soil surface is analyzed and discussed. Simple prediction
equations for the crater diameter are presented.