VBIED blast pressures - comparison of predicted and measured results

Predicting and mitigating the effects of Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIED) is part of DSTO's ongoing program into the study of Explosive Effects Threat Mitigation. A VBIED experiment was designed to collect experimental data to characterise VBIED blast and fragmentation effects. This information will be used to verify the computer simulation of such events and to improve understanding how to mitigate explosive effects on buildings and structures. Analysis of results was conducted by comparing the recorded blast pressures of the bare charge and VBIED events with the predictions from a number of software tools, namely BlastX, DBlast, Air3D, ConWep and VAPO. Analysis suggests that blast pressure outputs from a VBIED can be adequately predicted by the software and that they are not greatly affected by the addition of a vehicle i.e. that blast effects from VBIEDs can be modelled using equivalent mass bare charges.