Technology Description

The UXO-MM is a physics-based model that solves a classic boundary value problem using computational fluid dynamics methodologies. The UXO-MM applies long-term fluid forcing by wind, waves, and currents to the sediment budget of an underwater UXO site to predict changes in the initial burial state of the resident UXO population. It conducts a sequence of time-stepped computations of UXO exposure and subsequent mobility until local scour processes and broad-scale accretion induce reburial. ESTCP has formally validated the UXO-MM at coastal sites representative of three of the four primary coastal types populated by UXO. The ballistic impact burial model to be embedded into the UXO-MM architecture is STRIKE35, a six-degree-of-freedom ballistics model that is a derivative of the Navy's well-proven mine impact burial model, IMPACT35.

The project team will integrate a ballistics impact model with the UXO-MM and demonstrate and validate the integrated UXO Impact/Mobility Model (UXO-IMM) at a firing range having adequate site attributes, including digital bathymetry; long-term wind, wave, current, and water level data; detailed firing records; and ground-truth UXO survey data. The team will provide results of UXO-IMM simulations resulting from parameter sweeps of forcing conditions in specified geomorphological settings to assist with the development of the Underwater Munitions Expert System (UnMES) being developed under SERDP project MR-2227. The integrated UXO-IMM and UnMES will combine both modeling approaches, thereby functioning as a repository for the inferred relationships, including rule-of-thumb insights that will organize state-of-the-art knowledge into predictions of UXO burial and mobility in data-sparse environments.