Impact Shield Design & Testing 

Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI®) designs and tests unique shielding concepts to protect key assets and personnel from blast and fragmentation and foreign object damage (FOD) 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 products, including experimental and numerical validation testing.

Capabilities

• Testing over wide range of impact conditions
• Low to hypervelocity impacts
• Numerical analysis of impact events
• Shield development from concept to final product
• Analytical model development

Personnel shield for centrifuge operations

Experience

Fragment impact of fluid-filled pressurized container

• 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/powder guns
• Ballistics range
• Pendulum impact facility
• Explosively driven launchers
• Explosives and ballistics ranges

Fragment shield plates for Los Alamos National Laboratory blast chamber

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.

The Variety of projectiles launched with compressed gas guns

This flyer was published in April 2009. For more information about Impact Shield Design & Testing, contact P. A. Cox, (210) 522-2315, or Scott A. Mullin, (210) 522-2340, Mechanical Engineering Division, Southwest Research Institute, P.O. Drawer 28510, San Antonio, Texas 78228-0510.

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