High-velocity Fluid Impact on Flexible Structures

High-velocity impact on structures has been studied for over half century. Most of the earlier work concentrated on stiff structures impacted by aircraft as safety of nuclear power plants near airfields was the primary focus. Following the attacks on September 11, 2001, several studies on response of flexible structures impacted by aircraft commenced. At Purdue University extensive experimental and numerical simulation-based research projects have been carried out in the last 15 years to build an understanding of response of flexible structural elements (beams, walls) as well as building structural systems (beam-column-slab systems) under high-velocity fluid impact. It has been found that the behavior of simple structural elements under such loads can be estimated reasonably well using engineering expressions or calibrated simulation tools. However, in the case of building structural systems, with World Trade Center Tower I and the Pentagon building as the examples studied extensively, estimating the response to high-velocity fluid impact reliably remains elusive.