Mark Weaver, SE, PE Presenting at ICPS6

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ICPS 6 Mark Weaver Presenting

15 May Mark Weaver, SE, PE Presenting at ICPS6

Posted at 08:28h in Updates by

Mark Weaver will be presenting on a recently-concluded investigatory effort into the blast resistance of ethylene-vinyl acetate laminated glazing panels at the 6th International Conference on Protective Structures (ICPS6).  To learn more, please contact Mark at weaver@kcse.com.

ICPS6 Paper Title

 

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE BLAST RESISTANCE OF ETHYLENE-VINYL ACETATE LAMINATED GLAZING PANELS

 

Authors

Mark K. Weaver, Karagozian & Case, Inc.

Phillip Benshoof, Engineer, Department of State,  Physical Security Division, Research and Development Branch

Daniel Duke, Consulting Engineer, Department of State, Physical Security Division, Research and Development Branch

Huiyang Luo, Principal Scientist, Karagozian & Case, Inc.

Michael Lowak, Senior Principal Consultant, Baker Engineering and Risk Consultants, Inc.

Leila Abdul Hadi, Mechanical Engineer, Battelle at Tyndall AFB

ABSTRACT

It is common in protective design practice to utilize laminated glazing panels to mitigate the threat posed by hazardous glass shards resulting from an explosion.  Polyvinyl butyral (PVB) is the most common film interlayer utilized in glazing panels designed to have blast resistance.  As the demand for solar energy has increased over the past decade, the interlayer used in photovoltaic cells (i.e., ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA)) has become widely available and potentially an economically viable alternative to PVB, particularly where the edges of the laminated glazing panel are exposed to weather.  This paper summarizes a recently completed effort to assess the relative efficacy of EVA-laminated glazing panels to resist blast loads.  The effort involved a literature search, interlayer material characterization, shock tube testing, and open-air blast testing of EVA and PVB interlayers, laminated glazing panels, and insulated glazing units.  The results of this effort indicated that: (1) EVA-laminated glazing panels with annealed glass are prone to tearing, (2) roughly four times the thickness of EVA interlayer is needed for EVA-laminated glazing panels to exhibit the same qualitative blast load response as PVB-laminated glazing panels, and (3) the EVA films considered during the course of the effort generally exhibited similar qualitative and quantitative responses under dynamic loading conditions.