OE Barricade Guide Development

Barricades are widely used for mitigating the effects of fragmentation from an accidental explosion during the ordnance removal process. Historically, these barricades have been designed for each site as required. The criteria and design parameters for barricades have not been clearly defined and thus the designs and use of barricades vary widely. Barricade designs presently require significant efforts by engineering personnel and, due to the urgencies of many ordnance removal operations, often little time is available. The U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville HNC is developing a guide for design, construction, and use of barricades for explosive ordnance removal operations. The guide includes the use and construction of several aluminum framed portable barricades with several fragment mitigating material types as well as a modular sandbag barricade. The guide will enable field personnel to easily specify and construct the type of barricade to be used, including the type and thickness of fragment mitigating material required. The guide includes specified required thicknesses for eleven commonly encountered munitions. For other munitions, the munition must be analyzed to calculate the design fragment weight and the initial fragment velocity resulting from an accidental explosion and penetration curves may be used to determine the required thickness for various fragment mitigating materials. This will result in a commonality in barricades and reduce the engineering requirement in removal operations. This paper covers the initial barricade guide development along with the future development plans, including investigation of some other frame materials and potential fragment mitigating materials. This effort is being conducted for the Innovative Technologies Development Program in support of HNCs Ordnance and Explosive Mandatory Center of Expertise OE-MCX.