A P-I Diagram Approach for Predicting Dynamic Response and Damage Assessment of Reactive Power Concrete Columns Subjected to Blast Loading

Reactive power concrete (RPC) possesses high compressive strength, toughness, and durability, and it is increasingly being used in important buildings. The column is an important load-bearing member of a building, and its failure under blast loading results in building collapse. Based on these attributes, the dynamic response and the degree of damage to the RPC column are critical in assessing building performance. Due to the lack of methods, the progress of the study is relatively slow. In order to solve these issues, the dynamic response of the RPC column is studied based on the equivalent single-degree-of-freedom method and P-I curve in this paper. During the model validation phase, the deformation of the RPC column predicted using the ESDOF approach correlates well with the explosion simulation and test results. The P-I curves of the typical RPC column were also determined, and some data were analyzed to evaluate the influence of different key parameters, such as slenderness ratio, cross-sectional dimension, and axial compression ratio. The results show that the RPC column is susceptible to shear, bending, and bending-shear failure in the impulse load region, quasi-static load region, and dynamic load region, respectively. The cross-sectional dimension and slenderness ratio exhibit the greatest influence on P-I curves among the five parameters. With the increasing cross-sectional dimension and slenderness ratio, the overpressure asymptote of bending response increases by 4.2 times and decreases by about 57.3%. Furthermore, combined with the P-I curve features, it is found that reasonably increasing the cross-sectional dimensions and RPC strength could simultaneously improve the comprehensive anti-blast performance of RPC columns. This study was carried out to obtain the effect of the five parameters mentioned above on the degree of damage under different blast loading, which can provide a valuable reference for the dynamic response of RPC columns.