Wrap-up 2017

30.12.2017

The Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and its research unit, UNIDEMI, are pleased to announce that in 2017, the student Francisco de Figueiredo e Silva Cunha Salgado has completed his Doctoral Program in Mechanical Engineering with the presentation of his thesis entitled “Study of Sequential Effects of Blast Waves in Confined and Adjacent Structures”.

Abstract: The study of the effect of explosive blast in confined spaces, particularly the conditions under which blast is transmitted to adjacent compartments and the effects produced, is of relevance for the vulnerability assessment of buildings, aircraft and ships, being of paramount importance in the context of national security and defence due to the permanent and diverse threats of present times. In particular it is aimed, through numerical modelling of the phenomena, to study the response of adjacent compartments, one of them subjected to an internal explosion, to identify the effect of compartment volume and material properties in the conditions that will cause rupture and loss of structural integrity and the effect in neighbouring structures of the sequential wave blast. Together with the study of the modes of collapse and rupture of materials used in naval shipbuilding, in this case the AA5083-H111 aluminium alloy, the present work will be the basis for the setting-up of a tool for the design of naval ships and vessels, providing the means to analyse and predict their vulnerability to several types of military ordnance.