Blast Pressure Simulation of a Suicide Vest Attack

Suicide bomb vests represent one of the most devastating and indiscriminate forms of violence, often employed by extremist groups to instill fear and terror within communities. Computational techniques can be used to simulate blast wave propagation to gain a better knowledge of pressure dynamics, threat of explosions on human health and life, and the effects of explosions on infrastructure. The current study utilizes a coupled Eulerian-lagrangian (CEL) approach in ABAQUS to numerically simulate blast wave propagation generated from a suicide bombing in free-air. A virtual scene of targeted area is proposed to assess the lethality of a fully vented burst. The peak-overpressure (Pso) in free-air is predicted and compared to empirical prediction by Kingery-Bulmash model. The CEL model prediction of peak-overpressure in free-air demonstrated good convergence with Kingery-Bulmash measurements. The CEL analysis results of incident peak-overpressure showed an excellent agreement with empirical model measurements with maximum difference of 9%. Furthermore, the reflected peak-overpressure value is double the incident peak-overpressure magnitude in front of the walls. However, blast walls attenuated blast wave energy and peak-overpressure dropped by 53% at a distance 1.5h behind the walls. The measurements clarified high risk zone around the explosion source due to severity of the detonation, and further studies are essential to suggest protection methods to mitigate blasts and minimize losses in areas at risk of explosion.