Rapid Assessment of Structural Vulnerability

To support Air Force live fire test programs, including design of experiments (DOE), range safety, test apparatus design, model validation, post test simulations, vulnerability analysis (used by analysis of alternative (AoA) studies for design), and war game simulations for accurate kill removal assessment (campaign, mission, and engagement), a tool is needed to rapidly determine the probability of global failure given local damage for many threat/shotline combinations. The rapid structural vulnerability tool that results from this project will enable analysts to rapidly determine the residual strength of damaged aircraft structures. In addition, the tool will operate efficiently enough to handle thousands of threat, velocity, hit location, and orientation combinations per day. It will also use the resulting data to create probability of kill tables for vulnerability analyses. The finished tool will accommodate damage from any combination of impact, blast, Hydrodynamic Ram (HRAM), fragmentation, and thermal (fire, directed energy, laser, etc.) damage mechanisms.