O-172 Turning up the Heat: Science of CookOff Workshop Findings

In April 2016 MSIAC held the Science of Cookoff (SoCO) workshop in Atlanta. This was a five day workshop aimed at discussing the complex problem of cookoff. The objectives for the meeting were to improve the understanding of cookoff of energetic materials and their systems. These objectives were to be achieved through discussions and presentations on chemical and physical changes, heating rate and heating conditions, critical ignition and growth conditions, reaction phenomenology, models and modelling, and sub-scale testing to system-level tests.

The five day workshop started with state of the art presentations from subject matter experts from across the MSIAC community. The topics covered aspects of cookoff – ignition and growth, material damage, kinetics and material properties, violence of reaction, scaled tests for understanding cookoff, modelling and test hierarchy. These hot topics were then discussed in detail over the following three days. The workshop concluded with a summary of all findings and specific outputs for the community. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the main workshop findings and how the objectives of the workshop were met.

This paper is a summary of the final workshop report, which will be issued as an MSIAC limited distribution document. This paper will also touch upon the gaps in understanding, how to apply our collective knowledge and tools (tests and models) to improve design and assessment of munitions response to cookoff and what the understanding is of heating rate effect.