• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.231-245
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• 2024

In recent decades, the protection and vulnerability of civil structures under explosion loads became a critical issue in terms of security, which may cause loss of lives and structural damage. Concrete retaining walls also restrict soils and slopes from displacements; meanwhile, intensive temporary loading may cause massive damage. In the current study, the modified Johnson-Holmquist (also known as J-H2) material model is implemented for concrete materials to model damages into the ABAQUS through user-subroutines to predict the blasting-induced concrete damages and volume strains. For this purpose, a 3D finite-element model of the concrete retaining wall was conducted in coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian simulation. Subsequently, a blast load equal to 500 kg of TNT was considered in three different positions due to UFC 3-340-02. Influences of the critical parameters in smooth blastings, such as distance from a free face, position, and effective blasting time, on concrete damage rate and destroy patterns, are explored. According to the simulation results, the concrete penetration pattern at the same distance is significantly influenced by the density of the progress environment. The result reveals that the progress of waves and the intensity of damages in free-air blasting is entirely different from those that progress in a dense surrounding atmosphere such as soil. Half-damaged elements in air blasts are more than those of embedded explosions, but dense environments such as soil impose much more pressure in a limited zone and cause more destruction in retaining walls.