High Speed Penetration Modeling

For High Speed Penetration Modeling of warheads to provide maximum benefit to the Air Force, the development of high fidelity data collection instrumentation and improved diagnostic tools is a fundamental and necessary “first step” to assess the overall effectiveness of these penetrating warheads. The data collection system must survive dynamic, high energy impacts to capture the critical data. Considering that the defensive capabilities of hard targets are ever evolving with incorporation of improved technologies that employ high strength and high performance materials, the need for high fidelity data collection becomes even more important in the future. This proposal presents a robust, low cost, approach to develop small, high performance data collection devices and systems that will provide the operational characteristics to meet these requirements. The proposed development approach has been utilized previously for similar testing requirements when collecting data internal to gun launched projectiles, and sampling multiple sensors configured on devices subjected to explosive events. A development methodology based upon these prior designs forms the basis for further development to address the data collection for high speed warheads, and subsequently provide high fidelity data to simulation modeling tools.