• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.46-54
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• 2012

More than 70% of the accidents that occur on offshore installations stem from hydrocarbon explosions and fires, which, because they involve blast effects and heat, are extremely hazardous and have serious consequences in terms of human health, structural safety, and the surrounding environment. Blast barriers are integral structures in a typical offshore topside module to protect personnel and safety critical equipment by preventing the escalation of events caused by hydrocarbon explosions. Many researchers have shown the adequacy of the simple design tool commonly used by the offshore industry for the analysis and design of blast walls. However, limited information is available for corrugated blast wall design with explosion impact response characteristics. Therefore, this paper presents a parametric study on the explosion impact response characteristics of an offshore installation's stainless steel corrugated blast wall. This paperalso investigates and recommends design parameters for the structural design of a corrugated blast wall based on a nonlinear structural analysis of experiential results.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Advanced Composite Structures
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.38-44
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• 2015

In this paper, a finite element dynamic simulation study was performed to gain an insight about the blast wall test details for the offshore structures. The simulation was verified using qualitative and quantitative comparisons for different materials. Based on in-depth examination of blast simulation recordings, dynamic behaviors occurred in the blast wall against the explosion are determined. Subsequent simulation results present that the blast wall made of high energy absorbing high manganese steel performs much better in the shock absorption. In this paper, the existing finite element shock analysis using the LS-DYNA program is further extended to study the blast wave response of the corrugated blast wall made of the high manganese steel considering strain rate effects. The numerical results for various parameters are verified by comparing different material models with dynamic effects occurred in the blast wall from the explosive simulation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.130-137
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• 2012

Blast walls are integral structures at the typical offshore topside module to provide safety barriers for personnel and critical equipment against any blast loading and hydrocarbon explosions. The blast wall structures are usually configured with stainless steel. It can be referred as the good mechanical properties of the stainless steel against blast load, which features the characteristics of significant energy absorption and ductility. In this study, the proposed designs of corrugated panel are examined in order to determine the best design which satisfies the design criteria. The criteria on maximum deflection and stress are used to decide the best design. The effect of inclined angle of profile on deformation characteristics of blast wall is also performed. The numerical study was performed by using NX Nastran 7.5.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.68 no.2
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• pp.237-245
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• 2018

This study proposes an empirical formulation to predict the maximum deformation of offshore blast wall structure that is subjected to impact loading caused by hydrocarbon explosion. The blast wall model is assumed to be supported by a simply-supported boundary condition and corrugated panel is modelled. In total, 1,620 cases of LS-DYNA simulations were conducted to predict the maximum deformation of blast wall, and they were then used as input data for the development of the empirical formulation by regression analysis. Stainless steel was employed as materials and the strain rate effect was also taken into account. For the development of empirical formulation, a wide range of parametric studies were conducted by considering the main design parameters for corrugated panel, such as geometric properties (corrugation angle, breadth, height and thickness) and load profiles (peak pressure and time). In the case of the blast profile, idealised triangular shape is assumed. It is expected that the obtained empirical formulation will be useful for structural designers to predict maximum deformation of blast wall installed in offshore topside structures in the early design stage.