Ground Shock Calibration Experiments

GROUND SHOCK CALIBRATION EXPERIMENTS

Several experiments have been performed at Area 1 of the remote test site to calibrate explosive designs for simulating weapon-induced ground shock, often in preparation for larger events at US government test sites. They are instrumented with a variety of pressure, stress, strain, acceleration, velocity, and time-of-arrival gages to monitor the ground shock, to provide test-bed material properties, and to develop and demonstrate new instrumentation.

In the specific example described here, 46 gages of 9 different types were fielded by 6 agencies and contractors. The gages were placed at the explosive/test-bed interface and at four depths in the test bed. The test bed was backfilled with about 25 m 3 of a special concrete mix, whose ingredients were imported to perfectly match the material used at a government test site. An explosive charge covered the 16-m 2 test-bed surface and consisted of Ireco Iremite, Du Pont Detasheet, and SRI DET. The DET tiles were 600-mm-square x 50-mm-thick panels, formed to match the cylindrical curvature of the test-bed surface and more simultaneously initiated by Detasheet-driven aluminum flyer plates (2.5-ms jitter). The data return from the 75 recording channels was 100%.