Response of Non-Engineered Residential Units Subjected to Internal Blast Loading

Large number of residential units in both urban and rural areas of Sindh are constructed without considering any design provision and are constructed either using brick masonry made up of burnt clay which are usually plastered using either cement sand mortar or mud or lime mortar Over recent past, due to the gas energy crisis, there has been a general trend to have a portable natural gas or LNG cylinder with in the household, which may pose serious threat these non-engineered residential units. Therefore, the proposed study aimed to investigate the behaviour of the typical residential units exposed to indoor confined blast loading resulted as an action of blasting of an LNG cylinder. The well-known commercially available Conventional Weapons (CONWEP) model in the finite element software was used for modelling the effect of blast on the walls and slabs of the residential units. Based on the initial analysis, weak zones were identified and strengthened with locally available Textile Reinforced Mortars to study the post blast behaviour of the strengthened units under static loading. Strengthening schemes were found to be effective in restoring the load carrying capacities of damaged elements and units.