Blast Safety of the Building Envelope

This Resource Page of the Whole Buildings Design Guide addresses the mitigation of explosion effects on the exterior envelope of a new building designed to meet federal anti-terrorist design requirements. The recommendations given are primarily focused on meeting the ISC Security Design Criteria, but are also useful for understanding the anti-terrorist design requirements of other government agencies including the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of State. Although the concepts presented are for new buildings, many of the same concepts may be applied to retrofit of existing buildings. Both vehicle and hand delivered weapons targeting the exterior envelope are considered.