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Continuing Education Use the following learning objectives to focus your study while reading this month’s ARCHITECTURAL RECORD / AIA Continuing Education article. Learning Objective: After reading this article, you will be able to: 1. Understand how laminated glass with a polyvinyl butyral (PVB) interlayer can be used in the design of a building to protect that building, neighboring buildings and their occupants in the event of a bomb blast. 2. Recognize the situations in which a bomb blast risk assess- ment should be conducted prior to the design of a building or prior to the retrofitting on an existing building’s windows. 3. Understand the dynamics of a bomb detonation and the impact of bomb fallout on a building’s structure.

In recent years, the bomb has become the weapon of choice for terrorists. Since the early 1990s, several significant bomb attacks have occurred that directly affected the U.S., including the bombings of the U.S. embassies in East Africa, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and the World Trade Center. These and other attacks have heightened concerns about the security buildings provide to their occupants and neighbors. In most bomb attacks, structural damage and broken windows constitute major causes of death and injury for occupants of the targeted and surrounding buildings.

Unlike naturally occurring destructive events like hurricanes, a bomb blast cannot be reacted to with significant warning, and there is virtually no time between recognition and reaction. In order to be prepared for a blast event, risk assessment and planning must be completed far in advance and protection needs to be in place at all times.

Although no single product offers complete protection, laminated glass windows and doors made with a polyvinyl butyral (PVB) interlayer can be a critical first line of defense, because the glass tends to remain in its frame, thereby helping to protect the interior of the building from the blast wave effect of energy which causes the majority of damage to a building’s interior and surrounding buildings. Protection from flying glass is equally imperative, because as studies of bomb explosions indicate, more than 75 percent of the injuries caused by bomb blasts are glass-related.

 

Eagleton Federal Building, St. Louis Photography: Tim Parker

Laminated glass with a polyvinyl butyral PVB interlayer can be installed easily during the initial construction of a building and, in many cases, can be installed as a retrofit system for established facilities. Laminated glass with a PVB interlayer is virtually invisible to occupants and outsiders.