Blast Area Security

This report assesses the operational performance of explosives-detection equipment and hardened unit-loading devices (HULDs) in airports and compares their operational performance to their laboratory performance, with a focus on improving aviation security.

In November 1999, GSA and the U.S. Department of State convened a symposium to discuss the apparently conflicting objectives of security from terrorist attack and the design of public buildings in an open society. The symposium sponsors rejected the notion of rigid, prescriptive design approaches. The symposium concluded with a challenge to the design and security professions to craft aesthetically appealing architectural solutions that achieve balanced, performance-based approaches to both openness and security. In response to a request from the Office of the Chief Architect of the Public Buildings Service, the National Research Council (NRC) assembled a panel of independent experts, the Committee to Review the Security Design Criteria of the Interagency Security Committee. This committee was tasked to evaluate the ISC Security Design Criteria to determine whether particular provisions might be too prescriptive to allow a design professional "reasonable flexibility" in achieving desired security and physical protection objectives.

Rock Blasting and Explosives Engineering covers the practical engineering aspects of many different kinds of rock blasting. It includes a thorough analysis of the cost of the entire process of tunneling by drilling and blasting in comparison with full-face boring. Also covered are the fundamental sciences of rock mass and material strength, the thermal decomposition, burning, shock initiation, and detonation behavior of commercial and military explosives, and systems for charging explosives into drillholes. Functional descriptions of all current detonators and initiation systems are provided. The book includes chapters on flyrock, toxic fumes, the safety of explosives, and even explosives applied in metal working as a fine art. Fundamental in its approach, the text is based on the practical industrial experience of its authors. It is supported by an abundance of tables, diagrams, and figures. This combined textbook and handbook provides students, practitioners, and researchers in mining, mechanical, building construction, geological, and petroleum engineering with a source from which to gain a thorough understanding of the constructive use of explosives.

Reflects developments in the field of blast engineering since the early 1990s. Combining coverage of the design standards, codes and materials with an appreciation of the needs and demands of the designer, this book provides the engineer with a comprehensive source of reference for the main elements of blast engineering design in modern practice.

This expanded new edition continues to demonstrate that all law enforcement and security officers should have a working knowledge of bombs, explosives, suspicious devices, chemical-biological-radiological incidents and other threats for their own protection. A lack of this working knowledge can be a contributing factor to injury, death, or the inability to mitigate these incidents. The text points out, in a clear and concise format, the critical steps that should be taken by the first arriving personnel in order to allow the general law enforcement and security practitioner to respond to such.