SBIR-STTR Award

The U.S. military is increasingly focused on long-range warfare by delivering time-critical guided hypersonic projectiles to troops on the ground. Additionally, in recent years long range precision fires have become a priority for ranges on the order of 250 nm. On the development path to reaching these extended ranges, the U.S. DoD, Strategic Capabilities Office, Office of Navy Research, Navy and Army have developed launch packages designed to reach, and are closing in on, 80-100 nm ranges. To exceed these ranges with current projectile masses, supersonic and eventually hypersonic launch velocities need to be attained. These velocities require continuous material and structural improvement to reduce parasitic mass as well as advanced aerodynamic designs to increase flight range and manage concomitant thermal loads. Control surface technology must be state-of-the-art. Simulation, LLC shall enhance their state-of-the-art composite sabots and implement new features and new shifts in sabot paradigms, create novel aerodynamically designed aeroshells, and implement aerothermally stable control surfaces Simulations, LLC has been engineering and manufacturing composite sabots and ILPs for the Navy Hypervelocity Projectile (HVP) and EMRG programs, and Army medium caliber guns for over ten years, and shall transition their knowledge to this SBIR effort.

The U.S. military is increasingly focused on long-range warfare by delivering time-critical hypersonic gun-launched guided projectiles to support our troops at ranges of 100-250nm with the ultimate goal of removing troops completely from harm’s way. In support of those goals, Simulations, LLC has engineered a baseline large caliber hypersonic projectile (HSP) with an integrated lightweight composite sabot that can achieve Mach 6+ when launched at 50 kGees from a conventional powder gun, survive a bore pressure of 100ksi, and do so in a 105mm or larger bore diameter gun. In this approach, Simulations incorporated their proven composite sabot technology currently launching the U.S. Navy Hypervelocity Projectile (HVP) and shall transition that knowledge to this next generation OSD effort. Simulations shall apply their leading-edge high-compressive strength composites to the projectile aeroshell itself that will significantly lower parasitic mass, drastically increase compression strength, decrease lateral deflections during balloting loads, enable a more stable static margin due to the aft having a much lower density, and increase internal volume to house additional avionics, payload, and larger actuation devices. This HSP approach is derived from similar proven outer mold lines, proven composite sabots, proven control surfaces, and proven interfacing technologies. The fully integrated composite sabot will consist of simplified methods to initiate sabot discard, optimized geometries to remove excess features and material volume, a robust fiber-resin architecture durable to survive the various demanding environments, and exploit Simulations low-cost efficient manufacturing method. This Mach 6+ achievement enables long-range precision that will greatly reduce threats to our troops and place them our of harm's way