Gravity dams under blast loading: A Review

Hi-tech wars, accidental explosions, and subversive bombing attacks have alarmingly increased throughout the globe in recent times. Destructive Beirut explosion that occurred recently is the witness of this fact. Thus, it is increasingly realized that blast loading is a potential threat to the structures of higher importance. With the rapid development of precision and transmission techniques, the accuracy to blast the target and destruction potential of guided or controlled blasts have increased the vulnerability of important structures from subversive attacks in strategic border areas. Consequently, important infrastructure has become susceptible to such harsh blast loadings. Notwithstanding this prevailing belief that risk to water facilities from blast loading is small, yet dam operators and engineers are aware of 9/11 kind of threat [6]. The failure of dams with large reservoirs as a result of blast loads will cause serious economic loss by damaging the structure, hit agricultural sector of the area and also inundate downstream populated area. Modern dams are designed considering conventional loads, including hydrostatic pressure, gravity, sediment pressure, uplift pressure and seismic loads. Seismic performance evaluation of dam-reservoir-foundation systems under strong earthquakes has been widely studied [1, 10, 17, 18, 28, 29]. The effects of explosions on dams are not very well understood because not many investigations have been done on blast performance of dams. This is why most dam engineers lack the understanding of response of dams under blast loading.
This review presents the studies conducted on gravity dams subjected to various kinds of impulsive loadings. Also, numerical investigations done on concrete gravity dams (CGD) subjected to blast loading have been comprehensively reviewed. Probable research gap on underwater explosive loading to dams is also presented.