MSIAC welcomes 2 trainees from ENSTA Bretagne until 2 September 2016
MSIAC is happy to welcome two French students from the post-graduate state engineering school ENSTA Bretagne, based in Brest (France), which belongs to the DGA (Direction Générale de l’Armement).
The school gathers military and civilian students from all parts of France, upon results of a national entrance examination. Military students are intended to become IETA (national engineers for armament).
Maud and Maxime are in the 2nd year of engineering classes and at the end of the 3rd year, they will graduate with a Masters Degree of Engineering diploma in Mechanics, with specialty in Energetic Materials. They are attending a 12-week internship within MSIAC, of which the main field of expertise perfectly matches their specialty.
Mitigation Technologies for rocket motors.
Maud Chéneau will work on the mitigation technologies for rocket motors.
Producing insensitive munitions (IM) has become a problematic aspect for the munitions industry. To reduce the explosive response, several mitigation technologies could be used according to the type of munition, specific design constraints or the kind of threat it has to face.
The topic will focus on mitigation technologies available for rocket motors. A wide range of mitigation devices can be applied on solid propellant motors. The project intends to create a review document which summarizes the different mitigation devices which can be used with a rocket motor. The purpose of this document will be to provide an overview of the technologies with their detailed description, the threats against which they protect and their current use. This work will provide MSIAC nations with a state of the art on the mitigation technologies for rocket motors. The benefits will be to gain an understanding of these devices and to identify the difficulties in this achievement.
“Critical Diameter is Critical Information”
Maxime Voisin will work on critical diameters.
Every new engergetic material needs to be tested before being used by the military according to the NATO AOP-7. To properly perform many of these tests, the critical diameter should first be determined.
Indeed, the propagation of a steady state detonation in an unconfined cylindrical explosive will only occur if its diameter is larger than a certain diameter, called the critical diameter, no matter how high the velocity of the initiating shock wave. The latter depends on the nature, the composition and the density of the tested material.
However, testing the explosives or propellants can be expensive and a very long process, so it is important for MSIAC nations to have the best and easiest way to estimate the critical diameter of an energetic material. Maxime is creating a review document of all critical diameter testing procedures, as well as conducting an analysis and correlations to properties of interest for munitions safety.
The analysis includes reaction to shaped charge jet impact, Held’s Criteria, large scale gap test results, detonation velocity and pressure, as well as other explosive properties.
If you are interested in these 2 topics and/or would like to contribute, please feel free to contact MSIAC (e.schultz@msiac.nato.int or m.andrews@msiac.nato.int).
