Blast-resistant modular (BRM) steel-framed buildings have been utilized in petrochemicalfacilities and are becoming more common – both for turnaround situations and as alternatives toconventional in-place construction. These modular buildings utilize steel structural framemembers (usually HSS members that are ‘seismically' compact per AISC 341) with crimpedsteel plate walls. The method of attaching the plate walls to the frame members typically doesnot utilize mechanical fasteners; rather, continuous welded construction is usually used. Roofjoists and floor joists (usually seismically compact steel sections) typically support flat plateroofs and floors. BRM buildings can be designed for blast loading conditions that are on parwith other blast resistant construction. BRM buildings may be anchored or unanchored. Ifunanchored, they may slide which can result in additional risks. Typical ‘building blocks' are 10to 14 ft (3.0 to 4.3 m) wide by 20 to 50 ft (6.1 to 15.2 m) long. BRM buildings can range fromsingle module structures to multi-module and multi-story, integrally-connected structures, withfloor areas over 10,000 ft~2 (929 m~2) (see Figures 1 and 2). Refer to [Gehring and Summers,2005] for further details related to construction.This paper examines design issues for modular blast-resistant steel-framed buildings, aspresented in the upcoming 2008 edition of the ASCE guideline "Design of Blast ResistantBuildings in Petrochemical Facilities".
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