Use of reinforced rigid polyurethane foam for blast hazard mitigation

This article presents the development of a cost-effective lightweight protection technique for explosives transporting container and storage facilities employing surface-mounted Rigid Polyurethane Foam (RPF) plates. Different RPF specimens were prepared with different densities and sand particle reinforcement ratios ranging between 0% (unreinforced) and 30%. Mechanical properties characterization was conducted to optimize an RPF formulation to be tested under blast loading using different experimental techniques. Explosive scaling laws were utilized to relate indoor blast test results (performed with small explosive charges) to real-life blast scenarios. Small RDX explosive charges were placed and detonated inside RPF specimens to correlate the size of the resulting cavity to the explosive charge weight and the RPF density. Another set of experiments were conducted to evaluate the maximum deformation depth of lead witness plates resulting from blast waves. In these latter experiments, explosive charges were mounted on the free surface of RPF plates. In general, test results demonstrated the capability of reinforced RPF as a light weight cost-effective technique to mitigate blast load hazard.