Evaluation of Protective Cavities Position on Decreasing Destructive Effects of Surface Blast on Buried Tunnels

In recent years, in the wake of growing military and terrorist threats especially against strategic and social buried structures, immunization of these structures against explosions becomes a major necessity. therefore, it is crucial to study and use efficient methods to provide practical solutions to protect the key structures against advanced weapons and bombs. in this paper, the phenomenon of surface explosion and its impact on the tunnels, which are the most important buried structures, has been studied in full detail in a 3d environment. additionally, evaluated the effect of depth, number, and location of the tunnel protective cavities in reducing destructive effects of the explosions on the tunnels in a 2d environment using nonlinear dynamic analysis in ansys-autodyn software. the results indicate that increasing the depth and number of the tunnel protective cavities are effective in reducing the destructive effects of the explosion on buried tunnels. as a key finding, the best location of the tunnel cavities was estimated in the range between the edges of the tunnel section and the edges of explosion charge.