Fragment Hazards on Pre-Direct Course

Abstract

A height-of-burst (HOB) test such as Pre-DIRECT COURSE creates many areas of interest. To obtain a known HOB experiment with a high-explosive charge some type of support structure is required. This support structure may cause hazards from fragments. Given a certain set of initial conditions, a fragment could be capable of traveling tens of thousands of meters. Many locations in the test area require that personnel be present, operating equipment or conducting the test (i.e., instrumentation vans, administration vans, laser bunker, weather station, and observation area). The possible presence of fragments creates safety hazards and individual experiment hazards. Possibilities will exist for gages or objects to receive damage from fragment impact. This effort attempts to predict the quantity, velocity, and range of fragments present. An effort was made to predict, identify and measure fragments and their trajectories for the Pre-DIRECT COURSE event. A method does not exist which will perform the task by itself. Various predictive techniques exist from other work areas which, with care, can be applied to the case of interest. The predictive analysis as derived by Bishop results in the best prediction. Impact probabilities from Pre-DIRECT COURSE reveal that a person must be located out of a 130.3 m radius from ground zero to meet a safety criteria of less than one impact in one million. The factor of increase in fragment trajectories from Pre-DIRECT COURSE to DIRECT COURSE is calculated to be 1.0687.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1984
Accession Number
ADA140281

Entities

People

  • Robert L. Guice

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aerial Photography
  • Aerodynamic Characteristics
  • Air Force
  • Cameras
  • Coordinate Systems
  • Explosive Charges
  • Explosives
  • Ground Zero
  • High Explosives
  • Materials Laboratories
  • Materials Testing
  • Measurement
  • Photographs
  • Photography
  • Test Beds
  • Three Dimensional
  • Trajectories

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Munitions and Ordnance Engineering
  • ballistics.

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy