Integration Innovation, Inc. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N182-110

Description

The current state of weather requirements definition for tactical missiles is outdated providing operational decision makers little confidence in the performance of missiles in any environment other than blue-sky. The challenge is understanding detailed physics features like drop shape change through a shock, and then being able to apply those at the system level for vehicle performance assessment. Recent work has shown that drop shape change has a significant influence on impact damage thresholds. For the past 12 years, Integration Innovation, Inc. and CFD Research Corporation have been working with the US Army AMRDEC on the modernization of weather performance assessment capability for requirements development, ground and flight testing, and operations. i3 proposes to leverage these efforts to assess methods and computational tools for the prediction of drop shape change across a shock. In the Phase I, codes will be assessed for their accuracy in predicting shock tube test results, as well as their applicability to vehicle induced flow fields. In the Phase II, a down-selected code will be augmented and validated with ground test data. Results from this effort will be transitioned to Government programs seeking to identify the weather performance effects on tactical and high speed flight systems.