DEVELOPMENT OF BLAST RESISTANT MATERIALS USING GREEN MANUFACTURING PROCESS

Abstract

For many years glass has been one of the most widely used construction materials for building facades.
However, glass as a building material is very brittle, when explosion occurs, the air blast pressure, typically fractures glass windows, which might kill people and damage the surrounding areas. Evidence obtained from several terrorist attacks on buildings facades worldwide support this view. Currently, blast resistant glass panels are produced using polyvinyl butyral (PVB) interlayers and manufactured using the
lamination process. This process requires heating and also an autoclave system. Using this procedure is expensive and is also not environment-friendly. Thus, researchers from the National Defence University of Malaysia (NDUM) collaborated with a glass manufacturer in Malaysia, Secuglass Sdn. Bhd. to develop a blast resistant glass panel, using green manufacturing process, which is more cost effective and environment friendly. This process does not require heating as well as an autoclave for the lamination. With this new manufacturing process uses polyurethane resin as an interlayer to provide protection against blast explosions. In this process, the polyurethane resin is poured into the cavity between two sheets of glasses that are held together until the resin cures. In this research, the glass panel produced
from this process was tested for resistance against blast loading by using actual explosives. A field blast test was conducted on the laminated glass with polyurethane resin as an interlayer. The test was carried out in accordance with the ASTM F 1642-04 international testing standard for blast resistant glazing.
The blast test results showed that using the laminated glass with polyurethane resin interlayer by using the green manufacturing process, the blast was able to withstand the peak overpressure of 305.09 kPa and reflected pressure of 4,688.43 kPa. In conclusion there is a potential for this manufacturing process to be used in the production of blast resistant glazing with polyurethane resin as an interlayer.
Keywords: Green manufacturing technology; Polyurethane resin: Polyvinyl butyral (PVB); laminated glass; air blast loading.

Description