huangyhg

discovery tv show "smash lab"
not sure if anyone caught this on discovery. it is basically a new series that they blast, crush, etc things and figure out practical ways to make them better.
last night i watched the show about blast protection for block wall buildings. they tested to see of rhino lining help protect the buildings. their tests were pretty ridiculous. the mock ups they used were unreinforced, ungrouted cmu block. of course the uncoated block is going to fall apart. it didn't even appear that they even had any horizontal ladder reinforcement. their conclusion in the end was that if you coat a building inside and out with rhino lining, it served as blast protection for the building.
my wife was making fun of me because i kept calling them fools.
maybe we should suggest a few things we'd like to see smashed. it would be cool to see real structures meet thier failure load.
you said that was on the discovery channel? what day/time?
i saw some of it. when three of them climbed up, stood on top of the wall, and proclaimed that it was structurally sound because it held their weight, i knew it was time to switch channels. (is that a standard astm test?)
i loved when the one guy blew a hole thru a sheet of straight liner material with a 12-gauge shotgun, and acted surprised by the result. "i guess it needs to be applied to something in order to absorb the blast". sheesh.
maybe soon they will get the lab in texas where they test walls for projectiles to set the fema standards for "safe rooms" during tornadoes and hurricanes. they shoot a 12' long 2x4 out of an air cannon at about 150 mph to test the projectile resistance of a wall assembly.
it was a great controlled process to watch.
the unreinforced concrete or concrete block walls did not pass, but reinforced block and concrete walls performed well. i could not relate the reinforcement spacing to any static criteria, but the actual dynamic results were impressive. wood frame with plywood and exotic "band-aid" coatings did not fare too well as you would expect.
it was a little more interesting to an engineer than the tv back yard "blow it up" with a lot of smoke and no controls or relationship to a real wall element.
dick
fese: i saw "smash lab" on discovery channel 10 pm central time on dec. 27, 2007. looking at discovery channel's website, last night was 'episode 1.'

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