Blast Waves: (Shock Wave and High Pressure Phenomena)

As an editor of the international scienti?c journal Shock Waves, I was asked whether I might document some of my experience and knowledge in the ?eld of blast waves. I began an outline for a book on the basis of a short course that I had been teaching for several years. I added to the outline, ?lling in details and including recent devel- ments, especially in the subjects of height of burst curves and nonideal explosives. At a recent meeting of the International Symposium on the Interaction of Shock Waves, I was asked to write the book I had said I was working on. As a senior advisor to a group working on computational ?uid dynamics, I found that I was repeating many useful rules and conservation laws as new people came into the group. The transfer of knowledge was hit and miss as questions arose during the normal work day. Although I had developed a short course on blast waves, it was not practical to teach the full course every time a new member was added to the group. This was suf?cient incentive for me to undertake the writing of this book. I cut my work schedule to part time for two years while writing the book. This allowed me to remain heavily involved in ongoing and leading edge work in hydrodynamics while documenting this somewhat historical perspective on blast waves.

Table of Contents:
Some Basic Air Blast Definitions.- The Rankine–Hugoniot Relations.- Formation of Blast Waves.- Ideal High Explosive Detonation Waves.- Cased Explosives.- Blast Wave Propagation.- Boundary Layers.- Particulate Entrainment and Acceleration.- Instabilities.- Measurement Techniques.- Scaling Blast Parameters.- Blast Wave Reflections.- Height of Burst Effects.- Structure Interactions.- External Detonations.- Internal Detonations.- Simulation Techniques.- Some Notes on Non-ideal Explosives.- Modeling Blast Waves.

Review :
From the reviews: “This book, written by a distinguished expert on blast waves with more than 40 years of experience in the field, is a welcome addition to the blast wave community. … Important aspects concerning the effects of blast waves on structures are thoroughly presented and illuminated. On the whole I find that the book will serve as an excellent guide and reference to practicing scientists, engineers, and researchers in the field of blast waves. It will be a valuable addition to the library.” (Max Kandula, International Journal of Acoustics and Vibration, Vol. 16 (2), 2011)