Lethality

The Lethality research topic is one of the two Technology Specialisms within the Lethal Package ETA for CW ITP (ETA3). This area covers all target defeat mechanisms such as explosive effects and penetrators. The topic has a number of themes intended to stimulate appropriate research offerings. These are:
Controlled effects: This research theme encompasses the technologies, techniques and concepts that enable a payload to match its effects to a particular engagement (e.g. 'tuneable' or 'variable yield', 'managed lethality', 'directed effects', 'directional effects'…) and includes control of collateral effects.

Effects against a wider target set: This theme encompasses those warhead technologies and concepts that enable a wider number of targets/target types to be addressed by a weapon system (e.g. 'multiple effects'). This can include both multiple simultaneous effects and selectable effects.

Improved performance / efficiency: Performance/efficiency is defined here as the degree of effect produced for a given mass or volume of warhead. Improvement in warhead performance/efficiency provides numerous system and sub-system advantages. Examples of technology areas include liners, charges and initiation for high performance shaped charges and use of reactive materials.
Insensitive Munitions (IM/MURAT): IM  is an area of current interest in both the UK and Fr. Recognising that IM is fundamentally an issue for complete weapon systems rather than for sub-components alone, there are nonetheless technologies and techniques that can be applied to warheads to improve a weapon's 'IM status'.

Tools and techniques: The development and assessment of new warheads is increasingly reliant on appropriate tools and techniques. These include modelling and simulation tools and techniques such as hydrocodes and analytical models and extend to empirically derived algorithms.
The Lethality area aims to fund a balanced portfolio of research which has been guided and assessed to have the best chance of success.

Lethality Lead

point of contact for the CW ITP / Division Assistant for Programmes

Alain Cayrol is an engineer (Msc) with an experience of over ten years in weapons safety and programmes management and involved for 7 years in the coordination of collaborative projects (National Research Agency...). Currently assistant for a Division of CEA/DAM dedicated to researches on the effects of weapons (performances and vulnerability of systems).