Hooper, Joseph P.

We propose materials analysis and modeling efforts designed to complement ongoing testing and development for the agent-defeat penetrator (ADP) work being carried out at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) under the direction ADP project leader Dr. John D. Molitoris. Under our base proposal NPS will perform characterization of the payload materials developed by LLNL and post-mortem characterization of residues from burn tests and explosive shots to understand these materials and the overall combustion process of these formulations. Explicit analysis of residue from lab-scale burn tests will be compared to full-scale test residue to determine how small-scale studies and burn tests scale and relate to the results of larger performance tests initiated by HE detonation. Under the base effort proposed here, NPS will also test, analyze, model and design carbon-fiber composite cases with suitable strength properties to provide appropriate confinement in ADP testing at LLNL. These cases provide similar mechanical response to the final steel cases, but allow very high fidelity x-ray imaging to be performed to understand the behavior of these agent defeat payload materials under dynamic testing. LLNL/HEAF/Molitoris has high-resolution x-ray diagnostics that they are utilizing for the ADP Project. Under the enhanced proposal NPS will also develop a simplified lethality model for the thermite cloud that will allow for parameterization of experiments and scaling to different geometries in addition to enhanced work in material characterization and composite test case analysis/development.
Physics
Defense Threat Reduction Agency
DoD
2017