Simulated Large Scale Propagation Test
Abstract
There exist in Europe, Korea, and elsewhere ammunition magazines under the control of the United States Armed Forces that cannot be utilized to their full capacity because of encroachment of public facilities within the full capacity quantity distance arc. This has led to interest in barriers which could be placed in magazines to prevent the simultaneous detonation of all of the contents. The United States Navy is also interested in barriers to prevent sympathetic detonation in the High Performance Magazine, which is now under development, and barriers between large stocks of ammunition might have other applications, such as in ports where loading and unloading operations are being conducted. In general, such barriers are beneficial in reducing the quantity distance arc only if the quantities of ammunition are large. For Hazard Classification 1.1 materials stored in earth-covered magazines, the inhabited building distance remains constant for net explosive weights (NEW) from 1,OOO to 50,000 pounds. Therefore, subdivision of the stored ammunition has a major benefit only when the total NEW stored is greater than 100,OOO pounds. Full-scale testing of candidate designs with this quantity of explosive is extremely expensive, costing millions of dollars per test, and is valid only for the particular type and configuration of munitions tested. Furthermore, there is considerable experience which indicates that the results of small-scale tests cannot be easily extrapolated to full scale. It appears that the mechanism of propagation of detonation can change as the scale of the test increases and as the confinement around the ammunition increases. Consequently, the design of such barriers for the prevention of large-scale sympathetic detonation is not easy.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 1992
- Accession Number
- ADA507029
Entities
People
- D. Collis
- O. Lyman
- R. Frey
Organizations
- Ballistic Research Laboratory