Design and Testing of Combined Blast and Anti-Ram Barriers

Two new design concepts are presented for constructing barriers that can be used as both anti-ram and blast barriers. These concepts have performed well as anti-ram barriers, in one particular performance test stopping a 65,000-pound vehicle impacting at 50 miles per hour. Both concepts have also performed well as blast barriers, remaining relatively undamaged when struck with the blasts from large vehicle bombs placed nearly in contact with them. The two barriers use radically different concepts to achieve their purpose. One concept employs a structural panel composed of two sheets of steel plate with a concrete core placed between. The panel is supported by a steel posts sunk into the ground around 10 feet. Depending on the configuration and threat, panels range in size from 1 to 2 feet in thickness, with steel plates of º inch to 1 inch thick with heights ranging from 4 to 12 feet. The other barrier represents a new and effective use of soil and sheet metal materials. Here, the sheet metal is used to form cells that are then filled with soil. A simple pinning mechanism is used to attach adjacent sheets to one another. No foundation is required. A range of wall configurations have been developed, some with wall heights up to 80 feet. Karagozian & Case has developed high-fidelity physicsbased finite element models that are used to select design parameters for specific threats. This paper describes some of the designs, analytic results, and verification tests that have been developed. This paper also describes the features needed by such walls and how the features of these designs contribute to their success.