Air burst testing with concrete (scaled down)

  • #1
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Hi guys, litterely just signed up today and am liking the site.
Ill cut to the chase.

I am designing a concrete barrier to resist explosions, ballistics and heavy impact. Now while I am still an apprentice at structural engineering, My knowledge in mechanics and general physics isn't amazing, although I enjoy both subjects. Heres the problem.

At my lab, the closest I can get to recreating a blast is using a device that can blast air out at 120 psi.
now the structures I am going to be building and testing are going to be scaled down by 10.

is 120 psi going to be enough to test until failure? Concrete can take a compressive force of a few thousand psi, but when it comes to a sudden impact or blast, this dramatically drops.

But because of the scale, I'm not really sure how this works or how I should compensate. any ideas? any help or ideas from anyone with knowledge on the subject would be great. thanks in advance.

ps the scaled down model I wlil be building will lie approx 10-20 cm in height with a thickness of no more then 3 cm. I'm still only at the beginning of research and design, so I'm just looking into feasibility.
 

Answers and Replies

  • #2
Sounds like you might have to build a pneumatic cannon. Maybe with an intensifyer.
 

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