BakerRisk’s structural engineers have over three decades of combined experience in the analysis and design of buildings subjected to blast loads. Through this experience, we can utilize a wide range of analysis and design tools to specifically address your needs and provide a solution that works for you. To complement industry available software packages, our engineers have developed additional tools that leverage the extensive knowledge gained through our testing and R&D programs. When your problem needs a level of confidence beyond that which standard modeling programs provide, analyses can be complemented with custom tailored testing of individual building components, building sections, or full-scale buildings at our full-scale test facilities.
Depending on your specific need, a project can be designed using an efficient, high-level approach looking at a large number of structural components and buildings down to a very detailed test verification of structural members or a specific connection.
Example project types include:
Consequence and risk-based Facility Siting Studies often require a thorough review of many buildings located at a site for a large number of potential explosion accident scenarios. These evaluations require efficient models to estimate Building Damage Levels (BDLs) for the predicted blast loads and are often based on simplified Single-Degree-of-Freedom (SDOF) analysis. These SDOF models may be refined based on available explosion accident or test data, where applicable. An example of this is our Building Evaluation and Screening Tool (BEAST), which was developed for the Explosion Research Cooperative (ERC) to serve as a screening level database of building response models for standard buildings types.
Most analyses and designs of blast-loaded buildings and building components utilize SDOF analysis methods to calculate the dynamic response of individual wall, roof, or ancillary components. The maximum responses are compared to criteria published by government and industrial guidance documents, regulations, or standards. We perform SDOF analyses using various programs as applicable for a given project such as SBEDS (developed for the DoD), ISADS (developed for the ERC), and other in-house programs. If improved accuracy is required, Multi-Degree-of-Freedom (MDOF) models are often developed.
When complexities in the structural configuration or loading environment require high fidelity models, our experts conduct Finite Element Analyses (FEA) to meet your needs. BakerRisk routinely uses industry available programs such as LS-DYNA, DYNA-3D, and SAP2000 for detailed FEA studies. In addition, we combine these analyses with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis when the interaction between structural response and applied loads becomes an important factor such as when lighter weight structures are subjected to blast loads.
An added benefit of using our structural engineers to tackle your most important structural concerns is the confidence we provide by knowing that our methodologies have been validated against incident investigation data and full-scale structural response tests.
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