Computer modeling program for fragment trajectories within a bomb stack
- 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:
- USDOD; Department of Defense, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 6598026
- Report Number(s):
- LA-SUB-93-184; ON: DE93013916
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
BOMBS
DETONATIONS
STORAGE
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
LANL
MITIGATION
PMMA
PROGRESS REPORT
RECOMMENDATIONS
THEORETICAL DATA
TNT
TRAJECTORIES
CHEMICAL EXPLOSIVES
DATA
DOCUMENT TYPES
ESTERS
EXPLOSIVES
INFORMATION
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
NITRO COMPOUNDS
NUMERICAL DATA
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
ORGANIC NITROGEN COMPOUNDS
ORGANIC POLYMERS
POLYACRYLATES
POLYMERS
POLYVINYLS
SIMULATION
US DOE
US ORGANIZATIONS
WEAPONS
450100* - Military Technology
Weaponry
& National Defense- Chemical Explosions & Explosives
990200 - Mathematics & Computers