SBIR-STTR Award

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency has expressed the need for waterborne transport and dispersion capability to compliment its existing models for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) releases. DTRA's current capability is limited to the atmospheric transport of CBRN agents using the HPAC system. The objective of this proposed Phase I study is to couple Applied Science Associates (ASA) waterborne chemical transport and dispersion model, in a two-dimensional mode, with the HPAC system as a feasibility assessment for future complete integration of the modeling systems. An integration effort is proposed. Algorithm development is not needed due to ASA's existing operational waterborne chemical dispersion modeling capability. In addition, DTRA has advised that the source code for the HPAC system will not be available during Phase I of the project; hence the integration effort will focus on data access and sharing between ASA's CHEMMAP system and DTRA's HPAC system. Maintaining individual systems at this stage is also necessary since HPAC does not provide access to oceanographic information such as currents, temperature and salinity which are of critical importance to the transport of chemicals in marine and freshwater environments

The proposed Phase II project is to provide an advanced operational waterborne transport modeling capability of chemical agents within four-dimensional marine and fresh water environments. Based upon the findings of Phase I, we propose to further enhance the operational capabilities of ASA’s Waterborne Chemical Transport Model, relative to weaponized chemical agents, by developing comprehensive analytical and numerical expressions of the kinetics of chemical agents under the influence of varying environmental parameters characteristic of a waterborne environment and through the development of advanced numerical methods and databases appropriate for an operational environment. The specific weaponized chemical agents to be investigated during this study will be Tabun, Sarin, Soman, Cyclosarin, VX, Distilled Sulfur Mustard, Thickened Tabun, Thickened Soman, Thickened Cyclosarin, Thickened Distilled Sulfur Mustard, and Thickened VX. With such advancements at the conclusion of Phase II the model could find wide use by the DoD, DHS, and industry.

Keywords:
Weaponized Chemical Agent, Waterborne, Model, Fresh Water, Marine, Kinetics, Numerical Methods, Modeling