Explosion is an instant release of potential energy, heat, temperature and sound producing a pressure wave that travels away from the source radially on which the resulting force the blast wave is a blast load. Besides this, column especially external column as a main load bearing compressive structural component in buildings is the most critical structural element vulnerable to explosion and require an in-depth investigation on its performance against blast loads. Despite this, currently there is perceived gap and meagre of researches regarding numerical investigation on effect of presence of constant and variable axial loads on reinforced concrete column when subjected to blast load. In this study, the responses of reinforced concrete column under different scaled distance blast load scenarios accompanied by constant and axial loads were investigated. The finite element method of structural analysis was employed accompanied by nonlinear explicit time integration software LS-DYNA. The numerical analysis result revealed that RC columns subjected to large axial loads accompanied by small scaled distance blast scenario made the reinforced concrete column to suffer severe damages including crushing of concrete especially direct shear failures and breaking of reinforcing steel bars. In addition to this, comparing the nature and behaviour of variable axial loads with constant axial loads, the former loading case revealed larger nodal displacement values along height of column, and a higher displacement-time history curve was traced. On the other hand, the damage propagation nature of RC columns loaded with variable axial load was slow and progressive and different with RC columns with constant axial loads accompanied by small scaled blast scenario which was rendered to have a severely crushed concrete element without bending actions leaving the entire column inadequate for service.
Keywords: Blast load; Constant axial load; RC Column; Variable axial load.
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