The goal of explosives safety is to ensure that personnel (both on- and off-site), equipment, and/or explosives are provided with an appropriate level of protection from an accidental explosion. BakerRisk can provide guidance on quantity-distance (QD) siting as well as protective design if QD cannot be achieved. Our experience encompasses a wide array of analysis and design methods, which allows us to provide clients with solutions customized to their specific needs.
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Explosives safety can be achieved in a variety of ways, depending on the individual constraints applicable to each site and its operations. BakerRisk is familiar with a range of tools and methods, ranging from simple to complex, for addressing explosives safety issues.
At its most basic level, explosives safety is achieved by providing sufficient separation distance (D) from or between the stored/processed quantities (Q), to achieve Q-D compliance. Governing regulations include DESR 6055.09 for government facilities, DOD 4145.26-M for government contractors, or 27 CFR Part 555 for industry. We are also familiar with standards applicable to Canada, the UK, and NATO. Our intimate familiarity with these requirements allows us to apply Q-D criteria to assist clients with the selection of storage options, placement of inhabited buildings, and barricades for fragment mitigation.
Our engineers are familiar with the use of IMESAFR if the project requires compliance with the American Table of Distances (ATD) or probability-based risk assessment for siting of explosives facilities.
Where Q-D requirements cannot be met, whether due to high explosive weights or restrictions on real estate, protective construction is called upon to ensure occupant safety. The voluminous requirements of UFC 3-340-02 for the determination of blast loads, structural response, primary fragments, and debris throw are central to the design process. Our experience with Conblast (and its constituent models SHOCK, FRANG, and MUDEMIMP), BlastX, SBEDS, and TRAJ-CAN allows us to efficiently apply these codes to develop specific project requirements.
Where UFC methods prove too conservative for clients’ needs, we have a range of high-fidelity modeling tools for more realistic prediction of blast loads (CFD) and structural response (FEA). These can be used on a selective basis for high-value applications to refine and optimize the design of selected components/elements. Phenomena that can be addressed include blast propagation in internal or external environments, as well as structural response accounting for realistic boundary conditions, component interaction, and highly non-uniform loading. Other phenomena we can address include unconventional materials and primary fragment perforation.
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BakerRisk has developed a new safety moment concerning flange leaks.
National and multi-national agencies tasked with regulation of explosives storage have produced a number of different manuals governing the maximum amounts of HD 1.1 material that can be stored in an earth-covered magazine (ECM). These quantity-distance (Q-D) requirements are set forth in prescriptive language in manuals published for use by the engineering and planning community.
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