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A simulations-driven approach for predicting harmful effects of terrorist attacks and to design mitigation countermeasures

Emiliano Costa, Stefano Porziani
D’Appolonia

David Fletcher, Jonathan Paragreen
University of Sheffield

Public transportation systems play an important role in the life of cities, being used by large numbers of people every day. The high dependency on public transport and the high densities of passengers in a relatively small space makes public transport infrastructure, and in particular stations, terminals and hubs, attractive targets for terrorists whose aim is to maximize the impact of their actions governments and people to obtain a wide media coverage for theirs causes and ideals. The FP7 security research project SECURESTATION focuses specifically on developing tools and methodologies to allow designers to build or to retrofit railway infrastructure, railway stations and terminals for greater safety and security. The development and adaption of simplified methods (i.e. experimental and analytical models) and numerical methodologies to predict the damaging effects of explosive and chemical attacks are two of the fundamental steps for the achievement the Project objectives.
In particular, numerical methodologies have been used for the simulation of chemical agents dispersion and bomb explosion which have been carried out using the commercial codes FLUENT and AUTODYN respectively. The simulation of the different scenarios has allowed design recommendations to be made which have been fed into the project’s final design handbook. This paper describes the methodologies used in the simulation and modelling work and the subsequent design recommendations.