DUST INDUCED LOADING ON A HARD MOBILE LAUNCHER

THE RESPONSE OF A HARD MOBILE LAUNCHER (HML) IN A NUCLEAR AIRBLAST ENVIRONMENT IS STRONGLY DEPENDENT ON THE DRAG LOADS PRODUCED BY THE TWO PHASE FLUID-PARTICLE GUST BEHIND THE BLAST WAVE. THE OBJECTIVE OF THIS PROPOSED RESEARCH IS TO DEMONSTRATE THE FEASIBILITY OF CONDUCTING CREDIBLE AERO/DUST LOAD EXPERIMENTS IN A WIND TUNNEL TO SIMULATE THIS DRAG PHASE LOADING DURING A BLAST WAVE ENCOUNTER. THE PROPOSED APPROACH TO THIS EFFORT WILL INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING ACTIVITIES: (1) DEMONSTRATE THE ABILITY OF WIND TUNNELS TO SIMULATE CRITICAL ELEMENTS OF THE HML BLAST WAVE ENVIRONMENT, (2) DEVELOP APPROPRIATE SCALING PARAMETERS FOR COMBINED AERO/DUST LOADING FOR SUBSCALE EXPERIMENTS, (3) DEVELOP A PRELIMINARY DESIGN FOR A DUST LOADED FLOW GENERATOR, (4) DEMONSTRATE THE PERFORMANCE OF A PROTOTYPE DUST LOADED FLOW GENERATOR IN A CONTROLLED LABORATORY EXPERIMENT, AND (5) DEFINE INSTRUMENTATION REQUIREMENTS SPECIFIC TO PROVIDING (A) BODY FORCE MEASUREMENTS AND (B) FLOWFIELD DIAGNOSTICS FOR A DUST LOADED FLOW WIND TUNNEL TEST.