Under water weapons technology and Sea mine disposal
Publish date: 2012-11-16
Report number: FOI-R--3483--SE
Pages: 37
Written in: Swedish
Keywords:
- UNDEX
- close proximity
- validation
- under water effects
- effects
- sea mine
- disposal
- weapon
- warhead
Abstract
During the years 2010-2012 the project has increased the knowledge in under water weapons effect and investigated a concept for clearance of sea mine. The main focus of the work has been to validate a computational tool. Through small scale experiments carefully designed with increasing physical difficulty and equipped with several measurement points, the experimental base for validation gives the ability to extend the simulation to full scale in the computer. The predictive capability of a computational tool gives a possibility evaluate a design already in the design phase of a new project. A substantial part of the work has been performed within a trilateral collaboration together with TNO, The Netherlands and DRDC of Canada. The cooperation shares experimental results and perform round robin simulation with different tools emanating in different results. These differences are evaluated, discussed and improvements are suggested. Several areas have been identified as problematic and when improvements are implemented the results will increase in accuracy. Together with the fast computational and parallel computing it is in the near future possible to predict the response from a close proximity charge of a complete ship model. A small study regarding Water Born Improvised Explosive Devices, WBIED, concerned the information of such devices and the threat thereof when detonated in or near the water surface. Examples can be found in the literature and one of the most known ought to be USS Cole. The example shows the new asymmetric threats on an arena not familiar for the Swedish Navy. When a charge is detonated at the water surface the gas bubble still forms and poses a threat since IED might be poor in shock wave energy but relatively good regarding bubble energy. One such example is the explosive ANFO used in mining industry. The performed experiments with a close proximity surface charge, shows a large bubble but measurements of the target indicate small effect thereof. During 2010 a concept of clearing sea mines and OXA without detonating the object where studied. The idea is to bring the explosive to burning state with the aid of a Thermite charge. It has been tested above water with a familiar under water explosive as target with success. During 2011 the concept succeeded to become a transfer technique.