COMPONENT KILL CRITERIA ESTIMATE FOR A SMALL COMBUSTION ENGINE—EXPERIMENTAL PART

Abstract

Vulnerability and lethality (V/L) assessments can provide probabilities of a successful engagement or probabilities of kill given hit. The assessments require information about the munition, target and engagement conditions. The targets used in V/L assessment software are normally described on a component level in combination with ballistic protection performance and definitions of primary functions of the target (e.g. mobility, fire power). In order to evaluate if a target function or capability is lost after an engagement, it is necessary to determine the status of all the components that contribute to that specific function. The component kill criteria relates the damaging load on the component to a probability of rendering the component non-functional. The functional status of the complete target can then be derived from the status of each individual component by a fault tree analysis. This paper presents the experimental part of a work aiming to strengthen the process of defining component kill criteria. Projectiles were fired against running lawn mower engines. The engines were later disassembled in order to study the internal damage. The results generated here will be used in a following simulation based study aiming to find a kill criterion.