Notes for Spall and Fragmentation

Notes for Physics of Explosion

You are always invited to join our course discussions!

Topics for MACE 61054 Explosion Engineering

Topic: Physics of Explosions
Physics of Explosions – part I
Physics of Explosions – part II
Spalling and Fragmentation –I
Spalling and Fragmentation –II

Topic: High Energy Rate Processes
Energy Related Materials
Explosive Welding

Topic: Underwater Explosion 
Underwater Explosion -part I
Underwater Explosion -part II

Course summary

Tutorial questions
Tutorial solutions
 

Suggested topics for Explosion Engineering Projects

Directions for students registered for course unit: MACE 61054 Explosion Engineering
(1) Go to the website http://imechanica.org/node/2979, and read the discussion topics and previous posts.
(2) Register (only once) at http://www.imechanica.org/user/register
(3) Post you questions, comments.

This Blog is for the foundation year projects on mechanical engineering. Students are encouraged to discuss their projects here.

Chair in Computational Mechanics
School of Mechanical, Aerospace & Civil Engineering

Closing date: 17/04/2009

The School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering wishes to appoint a Professor in Computational Mechanics to augment our current world-leading expertise in computational fluids dynamics (CFD) and solid mechanics. With support from Electricité de France (EDF), the School is in the process of developing a Centre for Modelling and Simulation, which will bring together over 30 academics related to various aspects of computational mechanics. The new Chair will have the unique opportunity to fill the role as Director of the new Centre and, together with existing professors in the School, will provide leadership in the development and growth of the Centre.

The School has 80 academic staff delivering main stream education to undergraduate and postgraduate students in Aerospace, Mechanical and Civil Engineering. Its research is centred around five main research groups comprising; Aerospace; Energy, Environment and Climate Change; Extreme Loading and Design; Manufacturing and Laser Processing; and Nuclear Engineering. The new Centre for Modelling and Simulation will work across these research groups as well as working with other Schools/Institutes within the University, EDF and other industrial partners.

The successful applicant would be expected to have held a senior position in academia or in industry. The individual should be a leading authority in his or her field, widely respected internationally with a track record of producing world-class publications and in attracting major research funding. Although we are looking for exceptional candidates in all areas of computational mechanics, expertise in either fluid-structure interaction, solid mechanics, structural integrity, or fracture mechanics is expected.

There is also funding for a research fellow position associated with the development of the Centre, which will be advertised following appointment of the Chair.

As the title suggests, there are two focuses of this discussion theme: impact and cellular materials.

Impact protection can be very practical problems in safety, fires and explosions, oil and gas industry, subsea structures, car manufacturing, nuclear industry, rocket space engineering, etc.

Cellular materials are interesting as materials with visualable small structures. Shock wave propagation and interaction; gas, fluid and cell wall interactions; together with catastrophic collapse can be fancy problems to study theoretically and experimentally. In this area, continuum mechanics seems still have many challenging problems unsolved, and is useful.

Nanoscale cellular material? Bio-cellular material? Atomic scale impact? Can be very interesting!

Your comments are welcome!

Lecture note for the course (28 Sept - 2 Oct, 2009) at the International Centre for Mechanical Sciences (CISM), Udine, Italy.

I am teaching Subsea Integrity for the MSc students majoring in Subsea Engineering at the School of Engineering, University of Aberdeen. This is a course that combines the fundamental principles (corrosion, fracture, fatigue and material selection) with the industry applications (subsea integrity management and implementation, cathodic protection, case studies on subsea reliability and engineering assurance).

Teaching time schedule

Week 1 (Tuesday, 2/2):  Subsea integrity management and implementation (industrial lectures, IICORR Ltd)
Part 1 – Subsea integrity management (Mark Wilson), movie, pdf
Part 2 – Subsea integrity implementation (Dr. George Watson), movie, pdf
 

Week 2 (Tuesday, 9/2): Corrosion I (Dr. Tan)
Part 1 – Subsea integrity module, movie, pdf
Part 2 – Electrochemical cell, movie, pdf
 

Week 3 (Tuesday, 16/2): Corrosion II (Dr. Tan)
Part 1 – Subsea corrosion, movie, pdf
Part 2 – Corrosion protection, movie, pdf

 
Week 4 (Tuesday, 23/2): Corrosion III (Dr. Tan)
Part 1 – Corrosion rate, movie, pdf
Part 2 – Polarization, movie, pdf
 

Week 5 (Tuesday, 2/3): Fracture I (Dr. Tan)
Part 1 – Stress intensity factor, movie, pdf
Part 2 – Fracture toughness, movie, pdf

 
Week 6 (Tuesday, 9/3): Subsea engineering integrity and assurance (industrial lecture, Ji Wen, BP plc), pdf
Part 1 – movie
Part 2 – movie

 
Week 7 (Tuesday, 16/3): On Project and Tutorial 1 (corrosion) solutions (Dr. Tan)
Part 1 – Project
Part 2 – Tutorial 1 (corrosion) solutions

 
Week 8 (Tuesday, 23/3): Cathodic protection (industrial lectures, IICORR Ltd)
Part 1 – Cathodic Protection Monitoring (Richard Holt), movie, pdf
Part 2 – An Industry Perspective on Cathodic Protection Design (Tim Queen), movie, pdf

Week 9 (Tuesday, 20/4): Fracture II / Fatigue I (Dr. Tan)
Part 1 – Environment assisted cracking, movie, pdf
Part 2 – Fatigue fracture, movie, pdf
 

Week 10 (Tuesday, 27/4): Subsea integrity (tentative)
            (industrial lectures, Martin Harley and Dave Flett, Talisman Energy UK Ltd)

 
Week 11 (Tuesday, 4/5): Fatigue II (Dr. Tan)
Part 1 – Corrosion fatigue, movie, pdf
Part 2 – Tutorial 2 (fracture) solutions, movie, pdf
 

Week 12 (Tuesday, 11/5): Corrosion/Fracture/Fatigue (Dr. Tan)
Part 1 – Tutorial 3 (fatigue) solutions, movie, pdf
Part 2 – Summary

Materials such as sedimentary rocks, pharmaceutical tablets, plastic bonded explosives, biscuits, concretes, nacre, solid propellants, seashells and asphalts can be treated as particulate composites that consist of particles of high volume fraction, matrixes of thin layer and interfaces of high specific surface area. Mechanical behaviour of highly packed particulate composites is the theme of this issue of Journal Club forum.

1. Sedimentary rocks, covering almost the entire ocean floor and about three-quarters of the Earth's land area, are made of sediments cemented or compacted together by a particular force or process over time. Damaged sedimentary rocks, such as those during oil and gas extraction or subsea oil spilling, may cause manmade earthquake. On the other side, studies on the behaviour of sedimentary rocks can bring benefits to petroleum industry such as in improving the drilling efficiency. Behaviour of sedimentary rocks are important in many fields of earth sciences, partly because they relate to the sudden rock failure that contributes to earthquakes, and partly because they forms permeable paths for fluid flow in fault zones (Gudmundsson et al., in press)

2. For pulsatile drug delivery, an osmotic tablet consists of a medical core surrounded by a coating made of a material that is water-insoluble but permeable. The pressure build-up in the core pushes the coating for drug release (Rahemba et al., 2009). For a coating made of particulate composites, the percolation of interfaces can provide a controllable way for drug delivery.

3. Energetic materials such as plastic bonded explosives and solid rocket propellants consist of particles of high volume fraction embedded in a polymeric binder. During slow loading, crack propagation is mainly along interfaces, particles are not fractured rather the crack deviates over or under them. Burning occurs on the pressured surface, the network of debonded interfaces allows hot gas access to increased internal surface area and thereby increases the burning rates, which further accelerate the debonding. The network close to the surface triggers the burn--to-violent-reaction (BVR) transition (Gould et al., 2009).

4. In many structured food applications, mixed biopolymer gels are utilised that exhibit typical emulsion-like phase-separated microstructures, which include spherical particles of one phase (e.g. maltodextrin) within a continuous matrix of the second (e.g. gelatin). One of the greatest challenges in the food industries is to develop products that can fracture in a pre-designed way so that they can provide the required function (Brink et al., 2007).

5. A concrete is made of a cement matrix that bonds particles of different size (gravels and sands) and fills the interstitial space. Sudden debonding and networking of interfaces causes the brittle weakness; chemical and nuclear plants can be at risk from earthquake since the protecting concrete structures can be vulnerable.

6. Nacre, produced by some molluscs as an inner shell layer and known as the “mother of pearl”, consists of about 95% (weight) inorganic aragonite platelets and a few percent of organic biopolymer, forming a brick-and-mortar like network; when under attack the network reorganize to spread out the energy of the blow across the shell layer. Further, aragonite platelets are also particulate composite materials consists of nanograins and biopolymer binder, as discovered in an Atomic Force Microscope observation (Li and Huang, 2009). This two-scale (micro-nanoscale) ceramic/polymer composite material is of an extraordinary beauty, very strong and resilient.

References:

Gudmundsson A, Simmenes TH, Larsen B, Philipp SL (in press) Effects of internal structure and local stresses on fracture propagation, deflection, and arrest in fault zones. J. Struct. Geol.

Rahemba TR, Bell S, Connolly EK, Waterman KC (2009) Use of scoring to induce reproducible drug delivery from osmotic pulsatile tablets. Pharm. Dev. Technol. 14:548–555.

Brink J, Langton M, Stading M, Hermansson AM (2007) Simultaneous analysis of the structural and mechanical changes during large deformation of whey protein isolate/gelatin gels at the macro and micro levels. Food Hydrocolloids 21:409–419.

Gould PJ, Porter D, Cullis IG (2009) Predicting the damage/failure transition in polymer-bonded explosives. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Mechanical and Physical Behaviour of Materials under High Rate Loading, DYMAT 2009, EDP Sciences, pp. 1629-1633.

Li X, Huang Z (2009) Unveiling the Formation Mechanism of Pseudo-Single-Crystal Aragonite Platelets in Nacre, Phys Rev Lett, 102, 075502.

DISCUSSION THEMES 

• Assessing the potential of ageing infrastructure to provide the same level of service as newly constructed facilities
• Identifying the key threats to the integrity of a pipeline in later life
• New solutions for old pipelines: revealing how new technologies can
  help ensure reliability of older infrastructure and assessing the
  future outlook for mature pipes
• Taking the necessary steps to make sure that older pipelines are operated within regulatory requirements
• Tackling the inspection difficulties associated with ageing pipes

Oil & Gas Pipeline Integrity Management Summit, 7 - 8 October 2010, Aberdeen, UK
Roundtable discussion: Re-assessing ageing pipeline infrastructure to ensure safety, integrity and reliability
Discussion leader: Dr. Henry Tan

This is the discussion blog for the MSc course "Fundamental Safety Engineering and Risk Management Concepts" lectured at the School of Engineering, University of Aberdeen. This course is a core module for the following Postgraduate Taught Programmes:
1. Subsea Engineering; 2. Renewable Energy; 3. Oil and Gas Engineering; 4. Safety and Reliability Engineering

Since this blog is very congested now, you are encouraged to post on sub-blogs for each topic chosen. 

Discussion Topic 1: Rank top ten severe accidents in energy sector

Discussion Topic 2: Is nuclear power safe for humans and the environment?

Discussion Topic 3: Is fracking for shale gas safe and without damage to community environment? Should it be banned?

Discussion Topic 4: If the Piper Alpha disaster occurred today, discuss the current safety legislative regime that will apply.

Discussion Topic 5: In recent years, millions of solar panels have been placed on roofs around the world. Discuss how safe are they? Discuss the hidden pollution caused by solar panels.

Discussion Topic 6: Discuss safety in wind energy.

Discussion Topic 7: Discuss safety considerations in wave energy system.

Discussion Topic 8: Subsea integrity and reliability management

Discussion Topic 9: Safety and risk management in oil and gas industry

Discussion Topic 10: ONGC Mumbai High Accident (July 27, 2005 @ West Coast of India

Discussion Topic 11: Why is the FAR and SIR measures of fatality considered poor measures from the organisation perpective

Discussion Topic 12: Post Macondo underwater technology

Discussion Topic 13: Safety, Reliability and Integrity Mangement Processes and the Human Factor effect

Discussion Topic 14: Discuss safety in biofuels

Discussion Topic 15: Carbon emissions trading: How viable?

Discussion Topic 16: Global dimming and Global warming, hazardous effect of green house gases on our planet earth

Discussion Topic 17: Should Arctic drilling activities be halted until the Safety and Technology are improved?

Discussion Topic 18: The perceived conflict between safety and production

Discussion Topic 19: The April 16, 1947 Texas city fire disaster

Discussion Topic 20: ALARP concept and health and safety of personel, equipments and the work environment. Friends or foe.

Discussion Topic 21: Safety Integrity Level (SIL) of a system is important. What are the methods in place to assess the SIL of any system?

Discussion Topic 22: The role of safety in view of world energy forecast: striking a future balance

Discussion Topic 23: Implication of the offshore industry toward "zero harmful discharge"

Discussion Topic 24: Safety in Hydropower

Discussion Topic 25: The constant struggle between HSE legislation and human stupidity

Discussion Topic 26: The dangers associated with young and inexperienced workers in the workplace

Discussion Topic 27: Geothermal Energy a clean, safe, environmentally friendly and sustainable energy source

Discussion Topic 28: Your view on iMechanica Safety Engineering and Risk Management Debate

Discussion Topic 29: Tackling occupational hazards in developing countries

Discussion Topic 30: Extending the life of pipeline in the North Sea what are the Safety & Risk challenge

Discussion Topic 31: Prescriptive case, Safety case and the furture of Legislation

Discussion Topic 32: Decommissioning of aged Platforms and Pipelines in the North Sea - Risks and Challenges

Discussion Topic 33: Discuss the future of Biomass as an Alternative Source of Energy- Risks and Challenges

Discussion Topic 34: Can the application of Redundancy Increase Safety and Reliability in the oil and gas industry?

Discussion Topic 35: A different approach to the basic R = P x C formula

Discussion Topic 36: Deep Sea Disposal of Oil and Gas Installations – Acceptable risk

Discussion Topic 37: Reliability in the wake of a mega-stor

Discussion Topic 38: Lessons- how are these capture

Discussion Topic 39: Proposed EU regulation on offshore oil and gas safet

Discussion Topic 40: Does the value placed on human life have an effect on safet

Discussion Topic 41: MyAberdeen versus iMechanica

Discussion Topic 42: Potential and Safety Issues concerning Biogas

Discussion Topic 43: Unsafe acts/conditions during routine tasks in platforms/offshore and how to avoid them

Discussion Topic 44: Inherent safety in process safety management – a practical approach

Discussion Topic 45: Managing the risks and issues associated with a depleting reservoir

Discussion Topic 46: Is it safe to leave the abandoned oil and and gas wells?

Discussion Topic 47: Effectiveness of using RBD, FTA, ETA and Bayesian network in modelling failure of equipments in the industry

Discussion Topic 48 (sub-branch): Safety issues during transportation and distribution of oil and gas.

Discussion Topic 49: Safety issues during drilling operations

Discussion Topic 50: Shale Gas Harmful or not, Economical or not

Discussion Topic 51: Energy landscape of the future and the risks associate

Discussion Topic 52: Human Factors in Process Safety

Discussion Topic 53: Health, safety, environmental and cost issues regarding operation, disposal, and re-use of decommisioned plants

Discussion Topic 54: Quality Assurance/Control -the influence on Safety

Discussion Topic 55: Can the applications of Ergonomics Improve Work Place Health and Safety?

Discussion Topic 56: How safe is using a Personal Floatation Devices (PFDs) in an offshore platform or Helicopter Travel?

Discussion Topic 57: Why did macondo happen and changes it brought to health and safety laws

Discussion Topic 58: Discuss the safety and environmental issues of unconventional crude oil exploration

Discussion Topic 59: Discuss the Strategy of Fire Safety and Prevention in Offshore Installation

Discussion Topic 60: Discuss the Prevention of Slips, Trips and fall in the work place

Discussion Topic 61: Reactive Hazards

Discussion Topic 62: Discuss the Emergency Water Landing in the North Sea

Discussion Topic 63: Discuss the risks and challenges involved in working in a confined space.

Discussion Topic 64: Discuss the risks and challenges involved in simultanous operations or co-activities in Oil and Gas activities.

Discussion Topic 65: Excavation Work in Onshore Pipeline Crowded Areas - Risks and challenges

Discussion Topic 66: Discuss the risks and challenges involved in working at heights

Discussion Topic 67: Discuss the safety aspects associated with using divers in offshore operations

Discussion Topic 68: Discuss Body Mechanics and use of Tools in an Offshore Drilling Platform

Discussion Topic 69: The essence of performing FMEA and FMECA in Safety and Risk Management

Discussion Topic 70: Take a break, relax

other topics

You are welcome to initiate new discussion topics. If you are a student in my class “Fundamental Safety Engineering and Risk Management Concepts” and want to start a new discussion topic, you can do the following:
1. post a new blog entry on iMechanica of your proposed discussion topic;
2. email me (h.tan@abdn.ac.uk) the blog address;
3. then I will setup the link between the main discussion blog here and your blog.

Here contains information about how to register and post. http://imechanica.org/about
When you have difficulty with posting comments, read http://imechanica.org/node/3132

People from outside of the class are very welcome to join our debate!

Safety Engineering and Risk Management Debate 2012

Discussion Topic 1: Rank top ten severe accidents in energy sector

Rank top ten severe accidents in energy sector, and investigates their causes and consequences. Discuss the following:
 (1)    What were the physical/technical circumstances that led to the accident?
 (2)    What were the main underlying causes?
 (3)    Why did the accident result in: (i) So many fatalities; (ii) So much harm to the environment etc.?
 (4)    What factors contributed to the escalation of the accident?
 (5)    What were the legal consequences of the accident? 

Safety Engineering and Risk Management Debate 2012

Discussion Topic 2: Is nuclear power safe for humans and the environment?

Safety Engineering and Risk Management Debate 2012

Discussion Topic 3: Is fracking for shale gas safe and without damage to community environment? Should it be banned?

Safety Engineering and Risk Magement Debate 2012

Discussion Topic 4: If the Piper Alpha disaster occurred today, discuss the current safety legislative regime that will apply.

Safety Engineering and Risk Management Debate 2012

Discussion Topic 5: In recent years, millions of solar panels have been placed on roofs around the world. Discuss how safe are they? Discuss the hidden pollution caused by solar panels.

Safety Engineering and Risk Management Debate 2012

Discussion Topic 6: Discuss safety in wind energy.

Safety Engineering and Risk Management Debate 2012

Discussion Topic 7: Discuss safety considerations in wave energy system.

Safety Engineering and Risk Management Debate 2012

other topics

Safety Engineering and Risk Management Debate 2012

Discussion Topic 8: subsea integrity and reliability management