Author(s)

MAROUA HEDHLI, EMMANUEL LAPÉBIE, ERNHOLLA MARINASY, ISABELLE SOCHET

Abstract

This paper presents the URBEX fast-running code, one of the outputs of the research project URB(EX)³, co-funded by the French National Research Agency (grant #ANR-21-CE39-0016). The URBEX code is able to compute all urban effects following an explosion in urban configurations (multiple diffractions, regular and Mach reflections, channelling and urban canopy bypassing) in less than 2 minutes on a standard laptop, without the need of specific modelling knowledge so it could be used by first responders in emergency situations. Urban configurations are retrieved from widely available geographic data (OpenStreetMap, the IGN Institute in France or other sources). The URBEX code relies on a breakthrough approach, far above the international state-of-the-art, and its underlying mathematical method has been patented. This method will be detailed and discussed in the paper, together with its current limitations and the planned future improvements. A number of comparisons with high-quality, small-scale experiments done in the PRISME laboratory will also be presented, as well as with results from numerical codes and forensic analysis of past bombings. Finally, current actions aimed to extend the URBEX method will be outlined, in particular the development of fastrunning codes for explosions in complex buildings and in tunnel networks (MALBEC project, cofounded by the French Innovation Defense Lab).

Keywords

fast-running code, explosion, blast effects, urban configurations