Behavior of Steel Rectangular Hollow Sections Subject to Blast Loading

Large-scale far-field air-blast testing of cold-formed steel rectangular hollow sections (RHS) in flexure has been performed for the first time. These arena trials illustrated the excellent performance and ductility of cold-formed tubular steel members under extreme blast loads, without any fractures experienced in the cross section. These instrumented tests provided much performance data that enabled the validation of subsequent models, using both single-degree-of-freedom and explicit finite-element analysis. By means of a parametric numerical study, the behavioral models were used to illustrate the influence of key variables affecting the response. Guidance is then given for the preliminary selection of RHS flexural members for blast design applications to achieve various ductility ratios.