Pulse pressure testing and analysis of steel plates with openings

Underwood, Nicholas Pulse pressure testing and analysis of steel plates with openings. Doctor of Philosophy thesis, University of Liverpool.

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Abstract

Steel plates are widely used in a variety of civil engineering applications for load bearing structural components, due to their favourable strength to weight ratio. Many of these plates have openings that are commonly used for reducing weight, access for utilities or for inspection in shipping and offshore installations. However the influence of these openings to the structural component’s robustness and resilience against blast loading is relatively unknown, with limited research conducted in this subject to date. Due to the high costs associated with offshore facilities they are typically very congested. This coupled with the producing, processing, storing and transporting of hydrocarbon materials means that explosions and subsequent fires are major hazards with severe consequences. In the event of an explosion, the blast load will initially impact the secondary structure (large spanning plated sections) and then transfer through to the primary structure, highlighting their critical consideration in safety assessments. Plated structures are also known to cause confinement, which in turn will results in higher overpressures, making the consequences of an event more severe. The aim of this research was to investigate the combined influence that openings have on the overpressure and the structural response of thin ductile plates subjected to extreme dynamic transverse loads. This was achieved by conducting a set of well-defined experiments investigating the response of 1/8 scale (0.5 m square) mild steel plates with openings subjected to pulse pressure loading. Six central (scaled) openings were considered; circular (50, 75 and 100 mm) and extended circular (50 by 75, 75 by 100 and 100 by 125 mm) representative of typical offshore and shipping applications. Each plate design was assessed with two boundary conditions (restrained and non-restrained) and two nominal loading conditions. The boundary conditions adopted in this study allowed the response to be bounded, and enabled them to be practicably modelled in FEA-analyses and in the simplified analytical approaches. A pulse pressure test facility was used to generate nominal pulse pressure loads (25 and 50 psi) applied over a time (100 to 200+ ms load duration) representative of extreme explosion loading conditions offshore. All plates exhibited a mode I type failure (large inelastic deformation) highlighting the large reserve strength in such members. The work has shown that the inclusion of an opening (

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctor of Philosophy)
Additional Information:	Date: 2013-11 (completed)
Subjects:	?? TA ??
Divisions:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	08 Aug 2014 09:14
Last Modified:	16 Dec 2022 04:41
DOI:	10.17638/00015273
Supervisors:	Schleyer, GK Cantwell, Wesley
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/15273