Lethality of Persons due to Debris Throw. Update on Recent Work in Switzerland
Abstract
Most ammunition safety regulations are still based on quantity-distances (QD), taking into account deterministic criteria like a certain hazardous debris density as decisive and sole measure, but do not focus on the actual hazard to exposed persons. Such regulations often lead to over conservative and costly solutions. Modern world solutions, however, call for probabilistic risk analysis procedures focussing on the real hazards and allowing to optimise the use of the sparse resources left in our field today, be it money, personnel or space for military activities. On the other hand, innovative probabilistic risk analysis procedures as the one successfully used in Switzerland since the late 70's or the one described in the NATO's AASTP-4 manual also require more sophisticated explosion effect and lethality models than the ones nowadays used in QD-manuals. This paper describes the new model for calculating the lethality of people staying in the open or in buildings due to explosion produced debris, developed by Bienz, Kummer and Partner Ltd. on behalf of the Swiss DoD during the last years. The model allows taking into account parameters like - debris number density - impact angle of debris - impact energy of debris - different body positions - susceptibility of different body parts against debris impact and for people staying inside buildings - protection given by building elements - location of a person inside a room Further on, an overview on the computer code LambdaT , used to carry out the necessary calculations, is given. Finally, the results from calculations for a number of structures (mostly brickwork / r.c. structures) exposed to adit and crater debris from explosions in underground installations are shown, and general findings are discussed.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 2010
- Accession Number
- ADA532267
Entities
People
- Peter O. Kummer
Organizations
- Ministry of Defense