The protection of critical infrastructure to damaging explosive and thermal/fire loading is of high national and international importance. In order to adequately protect buildings and reduce risk to civilians from catastrophic terrorist, military or accidental explosive events we need a better understanding of the response of buildings/structures to these combined (blast and thermal) load sets. This improved understanding can lead to more resilient structures and development of appropriate crisis management plans (safe evacuation etc.). My research quantifies the physical risk to buildings/structures using advanced computational and experimental tools leading to outputs which will reduce the overall risk to such extreme events. My research therefore aligns with the risk, resilience and crisis management, focus area.