SubscribeEnergetic Systems and Security Technologies The Energetic Systems and Security Technologies (ES&ST) product line provides a complete range of assessment, engineering, modeling, product, process, procedures and testing capabilities. These technology?based services range from theoretical studies and projections of future trends, to full?scale hardware demonstrations through type classification.
ES&ST supports US government agencies concerned with conventional war fighting/defense, counterterrorism and law enforcement. This business is based on expertise in energetic materials and high speed interactions as applied to lethality, survivability, security and intelligence missions. Weapons and threat surrogates, passive and active protection, security technology, and R&D support are all an integral part of this product line.
Energetic Systems Capabilities/Facilities
Battelle’s High Energy Research Laboratory Area (HERLA) conducts a wide variety of research and development tasks. These tasks are associated with energetic materials in guns, warheads, and special purpose devices, including pyrotechnic and explosive-actuated devices. The HERLA includes three special-purpose buildings for containment of blast with integrated instrumentation rooms.
The complex also includes a building dedicated to the melting and casting of explosive charges, another facility for the handling of propellants and pyrotechnics, and three bunkers for charge and device preparation.The HERLA focuses on the following areas:
- Dynamic high-pressure phenomena
- Applications associated with propellants, explosives and pulsed electromagnetic energy
- Instrumented evaluations of high-energy explosive detonations and ballistic firing
Test resources for HERLA include the following facilities:
Large Explosive Containment Chamber
This facility is designed to contain the blast of up to 50 pounds of explosives, making it the largest privately owned blast containment facility in the U.S.
The 40-foot-diameter chamber allows large fixtures and equipment to be easily moved in and out of the chamber through 10-foot-square blast doors. An integral instrumentation room accommodates high-speed photography, flash radiography and data acquisition equipment associated with energetic events.
Small Caliber Test Facility
The small caliber test facility is used for a wide variety of weapons, ammunition, and materials studies. This facility consists of a 30 X 72 X 11.5 foot lightweight steel building for housing guns and instrumentation and an adjacent 12 X 12 X 9 foot steel lined building for ballistic impact into reactive targets.
Evaluation and assessment of light armor, such as personal protective systems are regularly conducted in Battelle's small caliber facility. The facility has a full complement of instrumentation to measure terminal, residual, protective and limit velocities. Other instrumentation includes flash x-ray and high-speed photographic imaging.
High Energy Research Facility
This multi-purpose research facility is used for a variety of internal ballistic, terminal ballistic and static detonation experiments. The facility incorporates a 110-foot long, 14-1/2-foot diameter ballistic range connected to an explosive containment chamber.Projectiles may be fired into the separate blast containment chamber, through a port in the blast containment doors, to impact explosives, electromagnetic armor, or otherwise hazardous targets in the chamber.
The chamber is designed to contain the blast from up to 25 pounds of TNT and has ample access ports to accommodate orthogonal flash radiography, high-speed camera coverage, gas sampling or other diagnostic equipment.A computer-equipped instrumentation room integral to the building allows for easy multiple-channel high-speed data acquisition and on-site data reduction. An integral darkroom, fully-equipped for processing flash X-ray, and conventional black and white film and prints, is also available making photographic experimental results immediately available on-site.
A pulsed power capacitor bank is installed in the upper instrumentation area above the containment chamber. The capacitor bank, with all the associated power conditioning and control, has storage capability up to 1 MJ. Conductors deliver current into the test chamber through a modified viewing port.
Explosives Preparation Facility
The explosives preparation facility is fully equipped for precision cast loading of military high explosives. Included is vacuum degassing equipment, and vibrator-equipped, heating-cooling plates for controlled charge solidification. Temperatures sensed at multiple locations and recorded for careful monitoring and control of the loading process.
Recording equipment is housed in a separate room from the melt/pour area. Also on-hand is laboratory equipment for explosive density and composition analysis. A static radiography service is available for X-ray inspection of cast charges. Support equipment for the mixing and loading of small quantities of pyrotechnics or incendiaries is also available.
Reactive Impact Altitude Facility
This installation is in a large below-ground level room, and includes light gas guns, instrumentation and terminal impact chambers.This facility is used to study the impact of projectiles or fragments filled with reactive materials.
There are two, two-stage hydrogen, light gas guns mounted on adjustable stands to allow quick test setups. The 11-mm bore diameter gun has a 2.4-m launch tube length and can accelerate 15 grams to 2 km/sec, or 2 grams to 5 km/sec.The 20-mm tube diameter has a 3.0-m long launch tube and can accelerate 30 grams to 2 km/sec or 20 grams to over 3 km/sec. The guns fire into an intermediate tank equipped with special velocity measurement and imaging equipment.
Two different intermediate impact tanks, with special equipment are used to emulate different altitudes. One impact tank is a 30 cubic meter, spherical altitude chamber that can contain half-scale warheads/re-entry vehicles. The other is an 8000 liter, 6.4 m long steel tank capable of containing 357 moles of gas at normal temperature and pressure. These tanks allow firings at simulated altitudes from sea level to in excess of 45 km.
The altitude chambers can also be equipped with a high accuracy calorimeter, allowing for measurement of total energy released during impact and target penetration or destruction. A variety of instrumentation is available including flash radiography, high speed cameras (streak or framing), 2-color optical pyrometer, and flash x-rays.Also at the ballistic site are air shock transducers, heat flux gauges, radiometers, pyrometers, and other equipment.
Instrumentation
A variety of high speed streak and framing cameras are available for recording dynamic events. We also have continuous recording digital imaging capable of 150,000 pictures per second. Files can be recorded as a series of stills or continuously recorded to DVD.
There are 150 KV and 300 KV flash X-ray systems located at the facility, having penetration capabilities of up to 3 and 7 inches of aluminum or equivalent area density materials, respectively.
Exposure time is 20 nanoseconds, short enough to "freeze" motion of objects traveling at over 50,000 feet/second.Blast protection techniques for X-ray film cassettes developed at Battelle allow radiography of fragment?producing explosive events at distances of less than 6 inches.
High speed camera equipment allows simultaneous optical and X-ray coverage of explosive events.Each of four 300 KV X-ray pulsers may be equipped with two X-ray heads which can be fired simultaneously to provide either wide area coverage or orthogonal pair radiographs.
Using time?sequenced firings or orthogonal pairs, three dimensional data describing position, velocity, and acceleration, as well as other dynamic data, can be obtained from high speed events. Forty four channels of high speed digital data is available to rapidly analyze, fit, and/or plot data.
The HERLA is staffed by trained personnel who know and understand explosive phenomenon and behavior.It is their expertise and experience that leads to the designing of the right tests and retrieving the right data.
