SwRI: Impact Shield Design & Testing to protect key assets and personnel

	Personnel shield for centrifuge operations

Unique impact shielding concepts are designed and tested at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) to protect key assets and personnel from blast and fragmentation hazards resulting from the release and initiation of energetic materials.

The SwRI Engineering Dynamics Department can develop impact shields from concept design to fabrication of final containment products, including experimental and numerical validation testing.

Impact Shield Design & Testing Capabilities

• Testing over wide range of impact conditions

  	Fragment impact of fluid-filled pressurized container

  Low to hypervelocity impacts

• Numerical analysis of impact events

• Analytical model development

• Shield development from concept to final product

Impact Shield Design & Testing Experience

• Space debris studies

• Transparent shields for centrifuge

• Land mine protection for HMMWV

• Fragment shields for containment structures

• Munitions storage concepts

• Donor/acceptor propagation testing

Facilities

• Large-caliber and compressed-gas guns

• Light-gas guns

  	SwRI gas guns are used to launch industrial-type fragments such as large, low-velocity accident debris to study impact damage to shields and industrial equipment.

• Powder guns

• Ballistics range

• Pendulum impact facility

• Explosively driven launchers

Ballistics and Explosives Range

SwRI operates and maintains the Ballistics and Explosives Range on the San Antonio campus. This 10-acre facility permits a wide variety of experimental programs to be conducted, including:

• Explosive loading

• Hazards evaluation and mitigation

• Foreign object damage

• Ballistic impact

• Armor testing

• Hypervelocity impact

SwRI technicians provide expert support for handling explosives, firing gas and powder guns, and collecting high-rate electronic data. A complement of equipment, including an on-site machine shop, digital data acquisition and transient recorders, high-speed imaging equipment, and data processors, supports range activities.

For more information about impact shield design and testing capabilities at SwRI or how you can contract with SwRI, please contact Scott A. Mullin at smullin@swri.org or  (210) 522-2340.