Computer modeling program for fragment trajectories within a bomb stack. Final report
- Morton Thikol, Inc., Brigham City, UT (United States). Utah Operations
The large aerial bombs used by the Air Force are arranged in stack arrays within storage magazines. The effects of the inadvertent detonation of one bomb on other bombs in the stack or within the magazine are of critical importance and a means to prevent sympathetic detonation from occurring must be found if the integrity of the stored bombs is to be maintained. Los Alamos National Laboratory has been funded to explore the phenomena involved in the bomb stack and to evaluate systems to prevent the mutual detonation of adjacent bombs in the event of the detonation of a single bomb. A problem in addressing this project is the acceleration and deceleration of high velocity fragments emerging from the detonating bomb and the trajectories of these fragments through the bomb stack. Tests were conducted by the Air Force using a 3-row by 5-column bomb stack array. The array was fitted with a polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) mitigation system consisting of blocks both between all adjacent bombs as well as in the center of each four-bomb rectangular array. The outside-upper corner bomb (1-1) was detonated (the donor). While bombs adjacent to the donor were protected from the effects of the blast by the PMMA mitigators, bombs sympathetically detonated were two rows and three columns away (3-4) and two rows and four columns away (3-5) from the donor. The purpose of this program was to perform numerical modeling of the physical processes involved in the flow of fragments within the bomb stack. The desired result was to predict the paths of the fragments and their impact velocities on any other bomb in the stack. In the modeling work covered by this report, the fragments are allowed to collide with stack elements, rebound from them, or travel unimpeded through the array. Elements of the bomb stack are acted on by gravity and drag forces as well as blast winds generated from the detonating explosive.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States); Morton Thikol, Inc., Brigham City, UT (United States). Utah Operations
- Sponsoring Organization:
- Department of Defense, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 10155938
- Report Number(s):
- LA-SUB-93-184; ON: DE93013916; TRN: TRN: 93:001319
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: 25 May 1989
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
BOMBS
STORAGE
DETONATIONS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
TRAJECTORIES
PMMA
MITIGATION
TNT
LANL
RECOMMENDATIONS
THEORETICAL DATA
PROGRESS REPORT
450100
990200
CHEMICAL EXPLOSIONS AND EXPLOSIVES
MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTERS