SCIENCE-BASED SIMULATION TOOLS FOR HAZARD ASSESSMENT AND MITIGATION

Solid rocket motors consist of hollow cylindrical grains of energetic solid propellant that are designed to be ignited in the bore and burn from the inside out. However, many common rocket motor accident scenarios involve mechanical or thermal insults to the outside case of the rocket. This can lead to ignition at the interface of the propellant and liner (i.e., outside-in combustion), and a resulting explosion. In this paper, we describe a state-of-the-art high-performance simulation program that can be used to predict the violence of explosions and aid the design of devices to mitigate the violence of accidental explosions during transportation and storage.