This expansion in scope appears to affect many government and domestic office buildings. Every indication is that such expanded services ultimately will become commonplace in both government and commercial design efforts, perhaps impacting the design process for all government and commercial buildings not just signature buildings. The individual or organization providing bomb defense engineering services to the building design team is frequently referred to as the blast design consultant. The interdisciplinary professional skills required to provide bomb defense engineering consulting services include structural dynamics, the physical properties of explosive detonations and general knowledge of physical security practices.
Explosive detonations produce hypersonic shock waves that result in short duration overpressures.
For example, the overpressure felt at a distance of 100 feet from the detonation of 1,000 pounds of TNT is approximately 24 psi. By contrast, a good stiff wind gust might result in a pressure load of 0.1 pounds per square foot on the surface of a building. The response of buildings to such loads is rooted in the dynamic response of their structural elements. The blast design consultant should be quite familiar with the response of building components to such loads. Since blast loads result from the detonation of an explosive, the physics of such detonations also are important in calculating blast loads.