Missile/UAV Dispense Interference Modeling

The innovation is that of using blast-based concepts for the hypersonic/endo dispense of an array of small hardened projectiles (SHAPs) from an interceptor missile. Hit-to-kill successes using this SHAP concept will be significantly enhanced from that of conventional, single warhead concepts, akin to the improved probability of hitting a fast moving object with buckshot in comparison to a single bullet. Technology issues need to be addressed to demonstrate the viability of this concept and advanced tools to address these issues are well established, based on related activities in analyzing blasts and multi-body dispense at high speeds. Key items we will be addressing are: moving blast interactions in a hypersonic environment (for both single and multiple blasts), SHAP effects on blast attenuation, and SHAP dispersion patterns. We will restrict our attention to spherical SHAPs where the key parameters are SHAP loading (overall mass of SHAPs to mass of explosive charge) and SHAP size for fixed loading (with a larger number of smaller SHAPs more closely following the blast gas-phase pathlines, but also attenuating the blast strength the most). Relevant technology stems from work being performed for MDA in dispensing blasts from interceptor missiles at exo-altitudes related to flux-based discrimination concepts.