R&D Projects and Outcomes

• Design and Development of SMART-CLAD for Blast Mitigation: Sacrificial Modular Adaptive Resilient Technology in Cladding for Load Attenuation and Defense of Critical Infrastructure

• Development of a framework for controlled building destruction of tall buildings using a numerical technique

Abstract: The planning of the safe demolition of tall buildings is governed by several factors such as planning of the intended collapse mechanism as per the structural systems and in-situ conditions, deciding fall direction within the different constraints (controlled through horizontal and vertical kinematic control of the building fall under the gravity), mitigating site-specific potential risks and hazards,  minimizing the debris footprint, minimizing the falling debris, controlling ground vibration, etc. However, some parameters that cannot be simulated include safe air over-pressure (AOP) and vibration generated by blasting. Further, based on the above control requirements/parameters, the collapse mechanism needs to be assessed and finalized for the building's structural system. Therefore, the current project aims to simulate the column removal scenario to achieve the intended control of the fall.

Objectives: The overall objective of the proposal is to develop a computational-based framework for the analysis and design of an implosion plan for the safe demolition of high-rise buildings through the following objectives:

• Virtual simulation of the real demolition scenario through the removal of structural elements with time delay based on computational methods

• Prediction of accurate behavior of planned collapse mechanism, debris footprint, profile, generated ground vibration, etc.

• Develop a guideline for structural failure sequence and design the initiation time and sequence of the blasting with a time delay to obtain the optimum output.

• Development of Blast and Heavy Impact Simulating Mechanism for testing of products 

This project is part of my M. Tech. thesis where a blast load simulator is proposed for the testing of products under blast and impact loading. The blast load simulator is based on working principle of shock tube. A shock tube is device to create shock wave and elevate temperature of the driving gas (due to compression). A shock tube primarily consists of two chambers one at higher pressure and another is at lower pressure separated through a diaphragm or fast acting valve. The sufficient high pressure in the chamber will burst the diaphragm or open the fast acting value by virtue of this a shock wave will be generated. This shock wave is tuned to replicate blast wave arises due to explosion. The outcome of this project can highlighted as we got a patent grant, two conference publications and a journal publication (in the process).