Effects of Low-Yield Nuclear Warheads on Airfield Runways

Abstract

A recently-completed study at the Waterways Experiment Station (WES) was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of an earth-penetrating nuclear warhead employed against airfields, which is one of the most important target categories for tactical nuclear attack. The objective of this study was to define damage to airfield runways as a function of warhead yield, burst position, target characteristics, and geological environment. Existing Army manuals stated that damage to runways should extend over a distance equal to 1.5 times the apparent crater diameter. At the onset of this study, it was felt that this estimate was grossly conservative; that effective damage to a runway by a buried nuclear burst might, in fact, be more than twice as extensive.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1976
Accession Number
ADA025991

Entities

People

  • Landon K. Davis

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircrafts
  • Blast
  • Concrete
  • Craters
  • Depth
  • Detonations
  • Explosions
  • Explosives
  • Ground Shock
  • High Explosives
  • Landing Fields
  • Models
  • Nuclear Warheads
  • Nuclear Weapons
  • Pavements
  • Surface Burst
  • Weapons

Readers

  • Munitions and Ordnance Engineering
  • Pavement Materials Engineering.
  • Seismology