AFRL featured at 79th Shock and Vibration Symposium

  • Published
  • By Rex Swenson
  • AFRL Public Affairs
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- --  The Air Force Research Laboratory, with spotlight on the Munitions Directorate at Eglin AFB and the Materials Directorate at Tyndall AFB, was the featured agency at the recent 79th Shock and Vibration Symposium held in Orlando, Fla. 

Dr. Alan Ohrt, Dr. Howard White, and Mr. Ernest Staubs from the Munitions Directorate served as co-chairs for the program committee that helped organize and set up the event. 

The Shock and Vibration Information Analysis Center was the host for the symposium and acts as a central information resource for Government activities, contractors, and academics concerned with structural dynamics design, analysis, testing, shock physics and weapon effects. 

The Symposium is the leading and oldest continual forum for the structural dynamics and vibration community to present and discuss new developments and on-going research dealing with the response of structures and materials to vibration and shock. 

Established in 1947, it includes classified, limited distribution, and unclassified sessions. The classified sessions allow critical technology and classified research to be presented in closed forums. The limited distribution sessions allow for the presentation of unclassified but sensitive research to be presented to US government attendees and their contractors. 

Topics covered at the symposium included shock-ship testing, water shock, weapons effects (air blast, ground shock, cratering, penetration) shock physics, earthquake engineering, structural dynamics, and shock and vibration instrumentation and experiment techniques. More than 260 technical papers were presented for the 618 government and corporate attendees. 

The Chief Scientist for the munitions directorate, Dr. Robert Sierakowski, introduced this year's keynote speaker, Dr. Steven Butler, the Air Force Materiel Command Executive Director and co-author of a paper with Dr. Alan Ohrt titled, "Weapon Effectiveness Against Material Targets - A Challenge for the Shock and Vibration Community." This paper was selected for publication in the Critical Technologies for Shock and Vibration journal, said Mr. Sierakowski with a modest smile. 

In all, AFRL personnel chaired seven technical sessions and presented or sponsored at least 30 papers. The Munitions Directorate was the most active. The Lethality and Vulnerability Branch chaired five technical sessions and presented or sponsored 19 papers related to weapon effects, blast modeling and experimentation. The Fuzes Branch chaired two technical sessions and presented or sponsored five papers related to shock testing and response of hard target penetrators. The Computational Mechanics Branch presented two papers related to shock induced combustion and fragment fly out. 

According to Dr. Doug Nance of the Computational Mechanics Branch, "Our work in shock-induced combustion is the culmination of six years of research in cooperation with the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Office Naval Research and the Georgia Institute of Technology." 

Panel discussions addressed topics such as new software developments, testing standards, or accelerometer isolation problems. The Symposium also hosted 23 tutorials, providing up-to-date technology and policy overviews by leading specialists.