PARAMETRIC STUDY OF STAND-OFF DISTANCE ON A BRIDGE UNDER BLAST LOADING

In the field of transportation, among the terrorist activities against highway structure, about 60% comprised of explosive attacks which highlight the necessity for blast resistant structures. Even though there is only a very small chance of terrorist attacks directed against a bridge, the economic and social penalties of such attacks can remain awfully high. There have been only few significant researches carried out in the area of blast against bridges. Experimental and analytical researches on blast load analysis are necessary to assess the efficiency of existing guidelines for blast resistant design practices of bridges. The present study aims to model the bridge in Finite Element Modeling (FEM) software ABAQUS and to conduct a parametric study on the effect of blast load on the model to obtain the response of the bridge components. The parameters for analysis are stand-off distance and location of blast. Analysis is done to quantify the effect of blast loading on bridge. When t