Norbert Gebbeken’s scientific contributions

In light of terrorist attacks and accidents, the need for structural protection against explosive events has increased significantly in recent decades. Conventional unprotected windows pose a particularly high risk for injury to building occupants due to glass fragments or even whole window frames being propelled into the interior and exterior of a building. A common approach of retrofitting is the application of anti-shatter films in combination with a catcher-cable system. The protection effect and efficiency of these measures was investigated with a series of shock tube tests by the authors and published. The present paper focusses on the cable catcher system that retain fragments of the window on the inside of the room. The impact and the forces as well as the deformations occurring in the steel cables are investigated using analytical and numerical methods. The findings are compared with the shock tube tests and it appears that there is a good agreement. As a result, the finite element simulations enable a detailed representation of the impact process and are suitable for the design of such structural protection measures. Furthermore, practical considerations using catcher-cable systems and application limits of the combined use with anti-shatter films for blast protection are discussed.