SBIR-STTR Award

This effort proposed is tailored for a hypersonic class missile “UAV” to evaluate the opportunity to optimize fragment dispersion as it relates to the engagement geometry and timing uncertainty for threat classes that are intercepted within the atmosphere. Store separation, or in the proposed context, smart dispense of a lethality enhancement device, is extremely difficult to evaluate via analytical means without validating the predicted solutions with ground test. Essentially, the problem is characterized by the canister separation from the UAV, canister blast dynamics, and particle dispersion in a hypersonic flow. Pattern shaping to enhance lethality based on engagement geometry and intercept timing uncertainly is accomplished by independent ignition timing for each of the dispensed canisters.

Keywords:
Dispense, Hypersonic, Canister, Fragment, Lethality, Atmosphere

The development of advanced interceptors addressing hit-to-kill against threats with the ability to maneuver poses significant challenges. Application of lethality enhancement devices in a hypersonic flowfield are strongly influenced by the blast chemistry, effective blast impulse applied to the fragments, freestream flowfield interaction with the blast wave, shock interactions among the fragments, and charge shape. To date simulation analysts and computational fluid dynamists have attempted to model and represent the mechanics of the particles in this very complex flowfield with simulation tools alone. At the start, assumptions are made which usually simplify or constrain the problem to allow a solution. Because the exact physics of all interactions are not precisely modeled, predictions often do not represent the real world outcome. This has lead to using probability functions to analytically determine the fragment pattern from a statistical data base. This proposed effort will provide the much needed test data to allow verification and validation and or correction to the existing simulation modeling tools currently used. Additionally, the test conditions will be representative of the actual flight conditions sought.

Keywords:
Dispense, Hypersonic, Canister, Fragment, Lethality, Atmosphere