Sustainable and economical alternatives to fragment capture materials in explosive and ballistic trials
| dc.contributor.author | Read, James | |
| dc.contributor.author | Quinlan, Philip | |
| dc.contributor.author | Bloodworth-Race, Susie | |
| dc.contributor.author | Hazael, Rachael | |
| dc.contributor.author | Critchley, Richard | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-03-15T13:34:39Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-03-15T13:34:39Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024-03-12 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Strawboard has been utilised as a fragmentation capture material since the 1960s, mainly employed to capture fragments from explosives and explosive devices from arena trials of munitions. As this material has historically been calibrated to a known standard, it has a proven record of allowing research establishments to ascertain the velocity of a fragment based on the depth of penetration of the strawboard. During the time of calibration, strawboard was used as a common building material which was both widely available and relatively affordable; however, due to the recent economic crisis and geopolitical supply issues, this is no longer the case. Building on initial testing, this paper investigates alternatives to strawboard to determine if a cheaper, more readily available material can be used instead. The alternatives are compared and judged based on the NATO ARSP-03 guideline for capture material which includes metrics such as price and attainability, as well as assessing environmental impact and its ability to be used as a viable alternative to strawboard in an explosive environment. Based on these NATO guidelines, explosive fragmentation and ballistic experiments were conducted, and ten materials were tested based on the following criteria: Handling, Density, Flammability, Calibration, Cost and Availability. Medium Density Fibreboard (MDF) was found to be a suitable alternative to strawboard. The data demonstrates that it provides the same capture performance as strawboard at approximately a quarter of the cost and is far more readily available. Other materials also showed potential and further testing should be undertaken to validate these materials as alternatives to MDF. | en_UK |
| dc.description.sponsorship | This research was supported by Cranfield University. | en_UK |
| dc.identifier.citation | Read J, Quinlan P, Bloodworth-Race S, et al., (2024) Sustainable and economical alternatives to fragment capture materials in explosive and ballistic trials. Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology, Available online 12 March 2024 | en_UK |
| dc.identifier.eissn | 1556-2891 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-024-00797-5 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/21005 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_UK | en_UK |
| dc.publisher | Springer | en_UK |
| dc.rights | Attribution 4.0 International | * |
| dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | * |
| dc.subject | Strawboard | en_UK |
| dc.subject | Blast | en_UK |
| dc.subject | MDF | en_UK |
| dc.subject | Fragmentation | en_UK |
| dc.subject | Explosive | en_UK |
| dc.title | Sustainable and economical alternatives to fragment capture materials in explosive and ballistic trials | en_UK |
| dc.type | Article | en_UK |
| dcterms.dateAccepted | 2024-02-23 | |
| dcterms.dateAccepted | 2024-02-23 |