Newest Developments in the German Explosive Safety Quantitative Risk Analysis Software (ESQRA-GE)
Abstract
The German explosive safety quantitative risk analysis software (ESQRA-GE) has originally been developed to assess ammunition storage scenarios using a transparent step-by-step risk analysis procedure. Starting with the definition of a scenario including different types of ammunition, storage facilities, barriers, buildings, vehicles and locations of persons, physical hazards due to an unexpected detonation of ammunition are calculated. Apart from blast, fragment and debris throw are considered. Based on the physical hazards, damage of persons, vehicles and buildings is evaluated. Including event frequency of an unexpected detonation of ammunition and the exposure of persons to the hazard source, the individual risk of persons is computed. The increasing number of international operations of the German armed forces leads to new threat scenarios. Especially the field of explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) and the threat generated by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) can be treated using the methodology of the ESQRA-GE. The focus of the paper is the characterization of new types of hazard sources like pipe bombs and different types of ammunition, e.g. originating from the former USSR, by using fragment matrices generated via experimental, analytical-empirical and numerical approaches. While in an ammunition storage scenario position and orientation of e.g. shells are geometrically restricted, IEDs as well as abandoned explosive ordnance may be arbitrarily positioned and even buried in the ground. To assess safety measures, possible fragment shadows behind barricades are calculated. EOD scenarios can be analyzed using damage zones based on a combination of damage analysis of fragment throw and probits describing blast injuries. In summary, the risk analysis software ESQRA-GE responds to requirements posed by the international character of the missions conducted
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 2010
- Accession Number
- ADA532234
Entities
People
- B. Brombacher
- C. Rizzuti
- F. K. Radtke
- I. Haering
- I. Stacke
- M. Voss