Dynamic Response, Damage Assessment and Protective Design of Critical Infrastructure Under Extreme Impact and Blast Loads

The structural safety of critical infrastructure under extreme impact and blast loads is a core frontier issue in the field of structural engineering. With the increasing frequency of accidental impacts, explosion incidents and extreme disaster loads worldwide, the resilience and protective performance of infrastructure structures have attracted widespread attention from academia and industry. At present, the multi-scale dynamic response mechanism and damage evolution law of typical infrastructure structures under strong impact loads are still not fully revealed, and the quantitative damage assessment system and optimized protective design methods still need to be improved. This Research Topic focuses on the latest advances in structural dynamics and protective engineering to address the urgent demand for safety enhancement of built infrastructure.

This Research Topic aims to gather cutting-edge theoretical, numerical and experimental achievements in the field of structural dynamic performance under extreme impact and blast loads. It focuses on solving key scientific and engineering issues including the multi-scale dynamic response mechanism of infrastructure structures, quantitative characterization of structural damage and failure modes, optimal design of advanced protective materials and structures, and novel computational and testing methods for impact dynamics. By integrating advances in structural mechanics, protective materials and computational methods, this topic seeks to promote the development of protective design theories for critical infrastructure, and to accelerate the transformation of fundamental research results into engineering design applications. Original studies with clear engineering application value are particularly encouraged.

This Research Topic welcomes original research papers, review articles and technical case studies covering the following themes: multi-scale dynamic response and damage evolution mechanism of critical infrastructure structures under impact and blast loads; quantitative damage assessment and failure mode analysis of engineering structures; design, optimization and application of advanced protective materials and protective structures; novel numerical simulation and experimental testing methods for structural impact dynamics; resilience improvement design of infrastructure structures under extreme loads. Manuscripts closely related to structural engineering design and mechanics are preferred.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review

Keywords: critical infrastructure, vulnerability assessment, shock wave, infrastructure resilience, extreme impact and blast loads, structural dynamic response, damage assessment, protective structure design, advanced protective materials, computational structural dynamics

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.