SBIR-STTR Award

This project will determine a means of focusing blast waves from volumetric explosives such as thermobaric and vapor cloud explosions. The work will be carried out using a combination of numerical and experimental approaches and will produce a first optimization of the selected solution

The primary objective of the proposed work is to develop and demonstrate methods to control the blast loading produced on internal surfaces within an enclosure due to a fuel-air explosion within the enclosure. This will be a direct extension of the work already carried out and currently ongoing under Phase I, in which fuel-air explosion blast load focusing via control of flammable cloud shape and ignition source location/timing has been demonstrated. A secondary objective of the proposed work is to refine and extend the methods developed in Phase I for the focusing of external fuel-air explosion blast loads. The bulk of this work would be performed via numerical analysis, using WBE's in-house computational fluid dynamics (CFD) computer code, the Blast Wave Target Interaction (BWTI) simulation package. Medium-scaled vapor cloud explosion tests would be performed as part of the proposed work to demonstrate the methods defined for blast load control and to validate the numerical model for this application. Although not an explicit objective of the proposed work, the BWTI simulation package will be improved as a result of the proposed work.

Keywords:
Fuel-Air Explosive, Vapor Cloud Explosion, Blast Wave Focusing, Blast Load Focusing