An explosion resulting from a pressure vessel failure, during pressure testing or otherwise, could cause major damage to process plant and surrounding structures, not to mention injury to personnel. Thus, at the design stage or during pressure testing, loading and response data are required for risk assessment purposes and in order to make provision in the event of an incident. This review paper discusses commonly used simplified methods of predicting the effects of blast loading on ductile metallic structural components that could arise for example from the rupture of a gas-pressurized vessel, and is useful for engineers who lack any basic knowledge of blast loads and their effect on structures. It is assumed that the characteristics of the explosion source and blast wave have been previously estimated using, for example, the R3 impact assessment procedure.
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