EXISTING STRUCTURES EVALUATION. PART 2. WINDOW GLASS AND APPLICATIONS
Abstract
The report covers one portion of a research project to evaluate existing National Fallout Shelter Survey (NFSS) structures for resistance to combined nuclear weapons effects. The objective of the investigation was to determine the response of windows to air blast overpressures generated by nuclear explosions, including glass fragment characteristics (weights, velocities, numbers produced, and spatial densities) that could be used to predict statistically the effects of window glass failure on humans. The analysis leading to the presentation of graphs, which can be used to predict the free-field overpressure at incipient failure for sheet and plate glass, was based on the theoretical load-deflection equation for large deflections of plates, modified by test results found in the literature. Glass panes were changed to equivalent single-degree-of-freedom systems in the analysis. The analysis was also used to estimate the time to failure for windows at various overpressures. Methods for predicting glass fragment characteristics were obtained empirically from Operation Teapot nuclear test data. The procedures for estimating incipient failure overpressures and fragment weights, spatial densities, numbers, and velocities were applied to windows in 14 buildings (located in San Jose and Palo Alto, California) that were part of the NFSS.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1968
- Accession Number
- AD0687294
Entities
People
- James H. Iverson
Organizations
- SRI International