Review of the Propagation of Inelastic Pressure Waves in Snow

A review on past experimental and theoretical work indicates a need for additional experimentation to characterize the response of snow to inelastic pressure waves. Pressure data from previously conducted explosion tests are analyzed to estimate the elastic limit of snow of 400 -kg/cu m density to b...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Albert,Donald G
Other Authors: COLD REGIONS RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING LAB HANOVER NH
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 1983
Subjects:
Ice
Online Access:http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA128714
http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA128714
Description
Summary:A review on past experimental and theoretical work indicates a need for additional experimentation to characterize the response of snow to inelastic pressure waves. Pressure data from previously conducted explosion tests are analyzed to estimate the elastic limit of snow of 400 -kg/cu m density to be about 36 kPa. This pressure corresponds to a scaled distance of 1.6 m/cu.rt.kg for charges fired beneath the surface of the snow, and to a scaled distance of 1.2 m/cu.rt.kg for charges fired in the air. The effects of a snow cover on the method of clearing a minefield by using an explosive charge fired in the air above the snow surface are also discussed and recommendations are given for further work in this area. Explosive pressure data are used to estimate the maximum effective scaled radius for detonating buried mines at shallow depth to be 0.8 m/cu.rt.kg. Fuel-air explosive will increase this effective radius significantly because of the increase in the size of the source region. (Author)