Blast-Resistant Design for Property and Building Owners

Property and building owners and managers should employ a comprehensive approach to blast design:

• Threat Assessment: We work with our clients to define the potential threats, considering factors such as the type and size of explosive, standoff distance, and potential points of attack.
• Performance Objectives: We establish clear performance objectives, defining the acceptable level of damage for different blast scenarios. This might range from minimal structural damage to ensuring life safety.
• Advanced Analysis: We use sophisticated software to model the blast event and analyze the structural response. This includes:
• Blast load modeling: Simulating the complex pressure-time history of the blast wave.
• Nonlinear dynamic analysis: Assessing the structural behavior under extreme loading conditions, considering material nonlinearities and large deformations.
• Design Strategies: Based on the analysis results, we implement design strategies to enhance the blast resistance of the structure. These may include:
•  Ductile detailing: Designing connections and members to deform in a controlled manner, absorbing energy and preventing brittle failure.
•  Stand-Off Distance: Locate parking and roadways to decrease the bomb blast pressures.
•  Redundancy: Build in redundant load paths to minimize the likelihood of progressive collapse.
• Material Selection: Builders should select materials with high strength, ductility, and energy absorption capacity. This may include:
• Ductility: Utilize ductile materials such as steel to absorb the energy from a blast.
• Mass: Utilize heavy cladding to absorb the energy from a blast.

Read the full article on our website!

Blast Design Expertise for Your Business

As technology evolves, so too does physical security design engineering. Integration with cyber security systems and the use of advanced surveillance techniques are becoming increasingly common. This field is constantly adapting to meet the ever-changing security landscape.

By combining engineering expertise with a keen understanding of security threats, physical security design engineers play a vital role in creating safe and secure environments for people and property.

We not only have in-depth knowledge of physical security and blast design criteria; we have access to interpretations and those who make them. Contact us today to learn more!

Blast Design for Defense

In today’s world, the threat of explosive attacks is a serious concern for a wide range of structures, from government buildings and military installations to critical infrastructure and commercial properties.

As a structural engineering company, we understand the importance of designing and constructing buildings that can withstand the devastating effects of blasts.
Understanding the Challenge

Blast events generate extreme loads in a very short time, creating complex dynamic forces that can cause catastrophic damage to conventional structures. These forces include:

•     Airblast: The rapid overpressure wave generated by the explosion.
•     Ground shock: The seismic waves transmitted through the ground.
•     Fragmentation: High-velocity debris propelled by the blast.

The goal of blast design is to mitigate these effects, protecting both the structure itself and the people inside.

Read more on our website!

 Blast Design Expertise for Your Business

As technology evolves, so too does physical security design engineering. Integration with cyber security systems and the use of advanced surveillance techniques are becoming increasingly common. This field is constantly adapting to meet the ever-changing security landscape.

By combining engineering expertise with a keen understanding of security threats, physical security design engineers play a vital role in creating safe and secure environments for people and property.

We not only have in-depth knowledge of physical security and blast design criteria; we have access to interpretations and those who make them. Contact us today to learn more!

What is Progessive Collapse and How Does it Relate to Blast Design?

IEI routinely conducts peer reviews of both structural and physical security designs on behalf of the federal government. A fundamental concept used in blast design is the Conservation of Energy Principal – energy cannot be created or destroyed. However, a blast can hit a building and transfer its energy, much like a bowling ball knocking down pins.

The UFC defines Progressive Collapse as “The spread of an initial local failure from building element to building element, eventually resulting in the collapse of an entire structure or a disproportionately large part of it.” Progressive Collapse can be prevented by adding redundancy and local hardening to the structural design of the building.

UFC 4-010-01 aim to reduce collateral damages and the scope and severity of mass casualties in buildings in the event of a terrorist attack. It encourages the use of cost effective, implementable, and enforceable means of protecting personnel if such an attack were to happen.

UFC 04-010-01 identifies 21 standards that must be considered for physical security design. These standards include but are not limited to:

• Building overhangs and breezeways
• Exterior masonry walls
• Windows and skylights
• Building entrance layouts
• Exterior doors

Read the full list and learn more about blast design engineering on our website.

Innovative Engineering Inc., Provides Blast Design Expertise

It is highly advantageous for the physical security consultant to assume Engineer of Record responsibilities. If this does not happen, you will often be left with a report of requirements by the consultant that have not been actually incorporated into the construction documents.

Innovative Engineering will be exhibiting at The Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) Small Business Conference this year at the Georgia World Congress Center! Come get your picture with Bigfoot!

How Does Blast Design Engineering Minimize Damage to Buildings?

The job of a blast design engineer is to understand the risk and consequences of an explosive event, and then to develop methods for reducing the potential harm caused to people and critical assets.

How can you be sure your building is protected and built with the latest standards in physical security?

A prevailing myth about the Physical Security design process is that a consultant can begin their involvement with the project after 35% design of the project is complete. This is too late though, as by this time, sites have been selected and laid out, and the building structural and envelope systems have already been selected.

Risk assessment forms the basis for physical security and bomb blast design. Assets should be categorized and prioritized, threats should be identified regarding aggressors and potential tactics, and you must be aware of any vulnerabilities that could be exploited by these aggressors.

How can blast design minimize damage? Find out more on our website. 

Innovative Engineering Inc., Provides Blast Design Expertise

It is highly advantageous for the physical security consultant to assume Engineer of Record responsibilities. If this does not happen, you will often be left with a report of requirements by the consultant that have not been actually incorporated into the construction documents.

Innovative Engineering will be exhibiting at The Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) Small Business Conference this year at the Georgia World Congress Center! Come get your picture with Bigfoot!

Protecting Your Facilities from Bioterrorism

 Protecting Your Facilities

Just as you ensure that your facilities are blast- and collapse-resistant, a comprehensive security risk assessment should also place special attention on HVAC ventilation and air filtration, systems and water supply to help reduce the risk to employees’ well-being and mass contamination of your work environment.

General Security Considerations

Any facility should look at building elements to ensure that adequate protection is in place. Preventing both forced and covert entry is the basis for everyday security. Examine access control, the configuration of building entrances and forced entry resistance in windows and doors. Establish an intrusion detection system (IDS) for both forced and covert entry, identify assessment requirements for both guards and closed-circuit TV (CCTV) systems and determine access control requirements. 

Read more about anti-terrorism protections on our website!

Has COVID-19 Made Your Business Prepared for Bioterrorism?

As we navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire world has become aware of the impact a pandemic has on the way we live and do business. While COVID-19 is believed to be a natural outbreak of a new coronavirus and not the product of bioterrorism, it shows what a widespread pandemic can do to our society, spreading from a single village to every continent in just 36 hours. The United States has struggled to slow the spread of COVID-19, but in South Korea, scientists used lessons learned during the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States to develop a plan for distribution of drugs, should a bioterrorism attack occur. The bioterrorism plan was the starting point for a drive-through testing plan for the COVID-19 pandemic, featuring testing centers all over the country and an easy-to-use app to locate them. Their quick response helped contain the coronavirus by identifying carriers and quarantining them before it spread further. COVID-19 gives us all the opportunity to learn from a worldwide pandemic and prepare for the possibility of bioterrorism attacks in the future. 

Then & Now

Bioterrorism may seem like a new danger, but it has been used in warfare and terrorism since the sixth century B.C., when Assyrians poisoned their enemy’s wells with fungus. Over the past couple of decades, it has become a more common threat. Extremist groups, such as ISIS and al-Qaeda, are studying the effects of the current pandemic and the ways it is weakening the world economy and governments. In addition to determining ways to prey on the weaknesses created by COVID-19, they may develop plans to create biological attacks on their enemies, in hopes of recreating the same worldwide impact as the coronavirus. Fortunately, terroristic plots often require knowledge and infrastructure that is beyond the means of many terrorist groups, so we have not experienced any widespread damage from bioterrorist attacks to date, but bioterrorism is a real possibility that could have a tremendous impact on the way we live. 

What is Bioterrorism? 

Find out more on our website!

For the past 20 years, Innovative Engineering Inc. (IEI) has provided security engineering services to help protect individual buildings and entire campuses through blast and progressive collapse-resistant design, as well as helping secure these facilities from terroristic and wartime threats of chemical, biological and radiation (CBR). IEI works with the Interagency Security Committee (ISC), Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) criteria, designing for terroristic and wartime threats. In addition, on behalf of the government, IEI provides peer reviews of other security consultants’ work to ensure its integrity. Highly trained and experienced in comprehensive security risk assessments, IEI representatives also conduct routine training seminars on security criteria.