Responses of HFR-LWC beams under close-range blast loadings accompanying membrane action

The load-carrying capacities and failure patterns of reinforced concrete components can be significantly changed by membrane effects. However, limited work has been carried out to investigate the blast resistance of Hybrid Fiber Reinforced Lightweight Aggregate Concrete (HFR-LWC) members accompanying membrane action. This paper presents a theoretical approach to quantitatively depicting the membrane behavior and its contribution on the behavior of HFR-LWC beams under close-range blast loadings, and the suitability of the proposed model is validated by a series of field tests. An improved Single-Degree-of-Freedom (SDOF) model was employed to describe the dynamic responses of beam-like members under blast loadings accompanying membrane action, where the mass-load coefficient is determined according to the nonuniformly distributed load induced by close-range explosion, and the membrane action is characterized by an in-plane (longitudinal) force and a resisting moment. The elasto-plastic and recovery responses of HFR-LWC beams under the combined action of blast load and membrane force were analyzed by the promoted model. A specially built end-constrain clamp was developed to provide membrane action for the beam member when they are subjected to blast load simultaneously. It is demonstrated that the analytical displacement-time histories are in good agreement with experimental results before peak deflections and that the improved SDOF model is an acceptable tool for predicting the behavior of HFR-LWC beams under blast loadings accompanying membrane action.