Groovy solution to explosion protection

Shock protection is a vital consideration for many types of building. Whether the risk is from potential terrorist attack to public spaces, industrial explosion or natural disaster, keeping people safe is of primary concern to engineers designing and building such structures.

Undergraduate researchers in the structural engineering laboratory of Prof Veronica Eliasson at the University of California San Diego made two related discoveries that could lead to major changes in how buildings are protected.

In the journal Multiscale and Multidisciplinary Modelling, Experiments and Design recent graduates Christina Scafidi and Alexander Ivanov explain that their research initially focused on the best way to lay out physical obstacles to shockwaves. They found that obstacles laid out in a logarithmic spiral – a pattern repeated many times in nature, such as in shelves and the swirl of galaxies, were best able to diminish the energy of shockwave and reduce overall damage.

Subsequently, they discovered that cutting three semi-circular grooves into each side of the obstacle materials made the obstruction even more effective attenuating shock.