ABSTRACT:
Almost every evening, our television screens show the effects of explosions on structures. A shattered
hotel, a damaged police post, a domestic gas explosion, the explosion failure of an aircraft pressure
bulkhead or of a jet engine. One of the most harrowing disasters occurred at Lockerbie in Scotland, in
December 1988 when a Boeing 747, Pan Am flight 103, suffered an internal bomb explosion in the
forward hold, and fell from the sky. In spite of this, the engineering profession in general is not well
versed in the design of static or moving structures to withstand explosions, partly because in the past
specifications have rarely included explosive loading as a factor in design, and partly because the various
dynamic effects of explosions on structures have only been examined as research subjects in a small
number of research laboratories.