Small-Scale High Performance Magazine Roof and Soil Cover Feasibility Test Results

The High Performance HP Magazine concept consists of an earth-covered box structure with interior cells where munitions are stored. The cells are designed to prevent sympathetic detonation between cells, thereby limiting the Maximum Credible Event MCE to the Net Explosive Weight NEW stored in any cell. The reinforced concrete box structure and soil cover and designed to limit the safe distance for the MCE from blast, fragment, and debris outside the magazine. Small-scale 110 feasibility tests were conducted by the Terminal Effects Research Analysis TERA Group at Socorro, NM in 1991. Results from these tests will be used to demonstrate the feasibility of the HP Magazine roof and soil cover to mitigate external debris and pressure hazards. A reusable magazine test fixture was built and six tests were performed in which 2.4 in. thick reinforced concrete roof specimens were covered with 0, 3.6, and 7.2 in. of soil. The explosive test charges were 7.43-lb rectangular blocks of Composition C4 equivalent to 10 lb of TNT. Data included airblast instrumentation, high-speed motion pictures, and debris recovery. The test results demonstrated the feasibility of the HP Magazine roof and soil cover to mitigate external debris and pressure hazards. For a full-scale 10,000-lb MCE, the safe ESQD Explosive Safety Quantity Distance pressure arc was reduced to about 500 ft 23.2 W 13, the distance from the magazine that the peak pressure decays to 1.2 psi. The full-scale ESQD arcs for debris were reduced to about 800 ft 37.2 W 13 and 550 ft 25.5 W 13 for soil covers of 3 and 6 ft, respectively. This is much less than the NAVSEA OP-5 Reference 1 ESQD arc for debris and fragment which is 1,250 ft.