Lightweight Hybrid SRM Shipping Container To Defeat Rocket Propelled Grenade

MDA is interested in insensitive munitions (IM) technology that can protect large solid rocket motors (SRM) from impact stimuli including rifles, fragment, and rocket propelled grenades (RPG). Current IM propellants exhibit poor IM characteristics for SRM larger than 12-in in diameter. RPG, rifles, and fragment impact have created safety concerns for large SRM during transportation and storage. Among all these threats RPG is most difficult to defeat. When an RPG fires, the shape charge formed by the softened metal particles can penetrate a shipping container and cause the propellant inside the SRM to explode. It is one of the most dangerous weapons used in battlefield since the Vietnam War. To defeat RPG using the current technology need thick metals (steel and titanium alloy) and ceramic plates over 12-in thick and weighs hundreds of thousands of pounds. Such heavy weight will nearly immobilize a vehicle that carries the SRM and shipping container. There are no SRM technology that can defeat RPG at the present time. Some military agencies are developing mechanisms with high power electricity to defeat RPG. However, to carry high power electricity around a SRM is a dangerous operation. In this SBIR Phase I project we propose to develop a novel family of hybrid composite to defeat RPG based on the principle of a multidisciplinary approach. It will be lightweight, easy, safe and flexible to use as shipping container for SRM with IM. The proposed composite will be able to save many lives and very expensive missiles like THAAD and ground vehicles from destruction by RPG.