Blast Waves

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Charles E. Needham

   Pages 1-1

3. Some Basic Air Blast Definitions

   • Charles E. Needham

   Pages 3-8

4. The Rankine–Hugoniot Relations

   • Charles E. Needham

   Pages 9-15

5. Formation of Blast Waves

   • Charles E. Needham

   Pages 17-36

6. Ideal High Explosive Detonation Waves

   • Charles E. Needham

   Pages 37-63

7. Cased Explosives

   • Charles E. Needham

   Pages 65-85

8. Blast Wave Propagation

   • Charles E. Needham

   Pages 87-99

9. Boundary Layers

   • Charles E. Needham

   Pages 101-113

10. Particulate Entrainment and Acceleration

    • Charles E. Needham

    Pages 115-125

11. Instabilities

    • Charles E. Needham

    Pages 127-137

12. Measurement Techniques

    • Charles E. Needham

    Pages 139-155

13. Scaling Blast Parameters

    • Charles E. Needham

    Pages 157-169

14. Blast Wave Reflections

    • Charles E. Needham

    Pages 171-199

15. Height of Burst Effects

    • Charles E. Needham

    Pages 201-246

16. Structure Interactions

    • Charles E. Needham

    Pages 247-269

17. External Detonations

    • Charles E. Needham

    Pages 271-280

18. Internal Detonations

    • Charles E. Needham

    Pages 281-291

19. Simulation Techniques

    • Charles E. Needham

    Pages 293-302

20. Some Notes on Non-ideal Explosives

    • Charles E. Needham

    Pages 303-312

As an editor of the international scienti?c journal Shock Waves, I was asked whether I might document some of my experience and knowledge in the ?eld of blast waves. I began an outline for a book on the basis of a short course that I had been teaching for several years. I added to the outline, ?lling in details and including recent devel- ments, especially in the subjects of height of burst curves and nonideal explosives. At a recent meeting of the International Symposium on the Interaction of Shock Waves, I was asked to write the book I had said I was working on. As a senior advisor to a group working on computational ?uid dynamics, I found that I was repeating many useful rules and conservation laws as new people came into the group. The transfer of knowledge was hit and miss as questions arose during the normal work day. Although I had developed a short course on blast waves, it was not practical to teach the full course every time a new member was added to the group. This was suf?cient incentive for me to undertake the writing of this book. I cut my work schedule to part time for two years while writing the book. This allowed me to remain heavily involved in ongoing and leading edge work in hydrodynamics while documenting this somewhat historical perspective on blast waves.

• Blast Waves
• Detonation Waves
• Shock Waves
• modeling
• simulation
• fluid- and aerodynamics

From the reviews:

“This book, written by a distinguished expert on blast waves with more than 40 years of experience in the field, is a welcome addition to the blast wave community. … Important aspects concerning the effects of blast waves on structures are thoroughly presented and illuminated. On the whole I find that the book will serve as an excellent guide and reference to practicing scientists, engineers, and researchers in the field of blast waves. It will be a valuable addition to the library.” (Max Kandula, International Journal of Acoustics and Vibration, Vol. 16 (2), 2011)

• Applied Research Associates, Inc., Albuquerque, U.S.A.

  Charles E. Needham

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