New technologies will protect buildings from explosions and shrapnel

New technologies will protect buildings from explosions and shrapnel

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14415632_sWhat exactly is the load on a building during an explosion resulting from a terror action, war or blow up of a domestic gas tank? The answer to this question is important in order to know how to plan protection of buildings, vehicles and other facilities from the shock waves created during an explosion.

This is the subject of Shock Waves Laboratory research at Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheba, led by Prof. Oren Sadot, part of the Protection Technologies R&D center, led by Prof. Gabi Ben-Dor.

The American periodical Popular Mechanics tells that Professors Oren Sadot and Gabi Ben Dor from the university`s Shock Waves Laboratory conduct experiments in order to  understand the behavior of explosions and shock waves, aiming at development of  technologies for protection of buildings and vehicles from explosions and shrapnels.

i-HLS Israel Homeland Security

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Prof. Oren Sadot told i-HLS that in his lab there are two facilities for creation of shock waves, a Shock Tube and an Exploding Wire, where a shock wave emulating an explosion is created by means of a strong electrical pulse. “We have created a charge with the power of just one tenth gram of TNT, since it is clear that you cannot deal with explosives in a university lab. But using Scale Up methods we can learn from the little explosion on what will be the effect of a large explosion, emulating the effect of a real explosion scenario, in full scale. It is possible to emulate the intensity of explosion in and out of the building, and propose solutions: where does the building need reinforcement, where is it safe and where it is dangerous to stay during an explosion, how to prevent serious damage to the building and how to protect the people who are in the building. All this can be determined when you know the loads during the explosion, and this is the subject of the experiments we are conducting now. We are executing these days a common project with the Home Front Command on these subjects.

 

By: iHLS NewsDesk