Blasting Behavior of Pipe Bomb and a Risk Evaluation Approach
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Abstract
This research studied the blasting behavior in pipe bombs. Damage levels on the concrete slabs and the fragment-received panel resulted from the explosions were measured and compared. In this study, the damage levels were affected by two designated variables—mass of explosive material and volume of the steel pipe. By changing these variables, measurements were conducted on six different cases of explosion—TNT-1/4lb (no pipe), TNT-1/4lb (small pipe), TNT-1/2lb (small pipe), TNT-1lb (medium pipe), TNT-1/4lb (medium pipe), and TNT-1/4lb (large pipe). As results, the blasted pressure of the TNT-1/4lb (small pipe) case was 40% of that of the TNT-1/4lb (no pipe) case. However, the damage on concrete slabs were more severe in the TNT-1/4lb (small pipe) case than in the TNT-1/4lb (no pipe) case. Results found that damage on concrete slabs increased when the mass of explosive material was increased. Also, damages on concrete slabs remained nearly identical when the volume of steel pipe was increased. As for the blasted fragment measurement, when the mass of explosive material was increased, the number of fragments also increased while the fragment sizes decreased. In addition, increasing the pipe volume showed no effect on the number and size of fragments. A simple risk evaluation indicated that the blasted fragments could do more damage, and thus were more dangerous, than the blasted pressure.
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