Abstract: In order to calculate the dynamic response of steel columns under blast loadings efficiently, methods are proposed for different blast loadings. For the impulsive blast loading, an upper bound approach is introduced into the equivalent single-degree-freedom system to calculate the local and global responses; for the quasi-static blast loading, the equivalent single-degree-freedom method can be directly used to determine the global response; for the dynamic blast loading, a pressure-impulse diagram is established by using indices of local and global deformations to determine the dynamic responses of steel columns. The results show that the proposed method gives reliable predictions, and can be applied to the efficient evaluation of dynamic responses of steel columns under blast loadings.

Key words: blast, steel column, dynamic response, efficient evaluation