Probabilistic analysis of a simple composite blast protection wall system

Abstract Terrorism has become a major challenge for the world. Terrorist organizations have raised their activities and their attacks in the last years using explosives. These attacks have left numerous numbers of victims, wreaked massive havoc to basic infrastructure, and increased global concern about the nature of these attacks. Blast wall protection systems can provide a required safety level to reduce injuries/casualties in different attack scenarios. Furthermore, installation and procurement costs could be greatly reduced using readily available materials. This paper investigates the performance of a composite wood-sand-wood blast wall by estimating the probability of exceeding a performance limit state for the wall for a suicide vest threat scenario. Fragility curves were devised using direct Monte Carlo simulations to predict the probability of failure of an equivalent simplified single degree-of-freedom system. The simplified model, calibrated to a 3D finite element analysis of the prototype wall, was used to determine the horizontal displacement at the back center of the wall. The analysis framework was developed to probabilistically evaluate the performance of the proposed blast wall in the presence of uncertainties in structural properties and blast load parameters under increasing intensity of the blast. Uncertainties in the random variables were modeled using appropriate statistical distributions. The analyses results show that under certain conditions the wall can provide the required level of protection for the considered threat scenarios.