Aerodynamic Drag and Lift Characteristics for Irregularly-Shaped Intercept Fragments

Analytical Services, Incorporated, teamed with Davidson Technologies, proposes a new approach to the characterization of drag and lift coefficient distributions for debris resulting from missile intercepts. The proposed approach utilizes both theoretical considerations and available measured data obtained from flight tests or other sources. This approach uses the measured data to obtain best estimates of a “true distribution” derived from actual debris/fragment physical attributes. The ASI team proposes to use government furnished data from flight tests or other sources, along with transport and dispersion model propagators, to estimate a consistent set of drag and lift coefficient distributions with error estimates. This work is important because of the widespread use of transport and dispersion models along with debris distribution models, i.e., KIDD, and the use of software derivative products, such as Range Safety software, in the prediction of debris footprints.