Calculating critical elements

The design of a structure subjected to explosion requires special methods to take account of the specific nature of this type of loading:

• transient, variable over time ;

• intense, but very short-lived;

• rare, with a low probability of occurrence.

Quantified risk analysis techniques make it possible to take into account the exceptional nature of this load case, by defining explosion levels as a function of probability. What remains to be determined, however, is the behavior of structures with regard to the explosion actions thus determined.

In the previous sections,...