Awards

Japan Explosives Society Technology Award 2022

Experimental study on blast reduction using structures and cushioning materials

　Dr. Takahiro Tamba has conducted experimental studies from various viewpoints to mitigate the propagation of air blasts. In an experiment on mitigation of blast propagation, water droplets were supplied by sprinklers placed around explosives at the hypocenter, and the pressure waveform of the blast wave was measured while controlling the amount and area of the water droplets. The results showed that the water spray area affects the mitigation of peak overpressure, and that a smaller water spray area has a greater effect on blast pressure reduction, even with the same water spray volume. This indicates that the spatial density of water droplets is an important factor in mitigating blast. In order to mitigate the blast in a specific direction, an additional wall is installed on top of the standard blast wall and its blast mitigation performance is experimentally investigated. The additional wall is made of steel plates of type I and C. Comparison with the type I wall shows that the peak pressure decreases behind the wall near the detonation point for the type C wall, but the blast intensifies on the opposite side of the wall, and that the blast pressure behind the wall is reduced with distance as the type C wall is moved away from the explosives. This indicates that installing a C-shaped wall as an additional wall at a distance from the explosives is effective in protecting objects in a specific direction from the blast.
　These research results provide useful knowledge on mitigation of blast propagation and are useful not only for explosion safety research, but also as an explosion safety mitigation technique. Therefore, this work is a significant contribution to Japan Explosives Society and deserves the Technology Award.

Recommended Papers

1. Effects of flow velocity on ignition characteristics of hydrogen recombination catalyst, Sci. Technol. Energ. Mater., Vol. 82, No. 5, pp. 137-141 (2021)
2. Additional protection to a standard wall against blast wave -Effect of the shape and position of the additional wall-, Sci. Technol. Energ. Mater., Vol. 82, No. 3, pp. 75-82 (2021)
3. Experimental investigation of blast wave pressure mitigation by water droplets interaction, Sci. Technol. Energ. Mater., Vol. 81, No. 1, pp. 29-32 (2020)

Biography