Effects of Atmospheric Turbulence on Ballistic Testing

Abstract

The effects of atmospheric turbulence on munition target scatter are determined from numerical simulations of ballistic trajectories through many realizations of realistic simulated turbulent wind fields. A technique is evaluated for correcting for the effects of turbulence on ballistic testing procedures by using a line of sonic anemometer measurements taken along the trajectory path. The metric used to evaluate the correction is the difference between the target impact scatter produced with and without the use of the anemometers in the trajectory calculations. The improvement in the testing procedure as measured by this metric is determined as a function of the number of sonic anemometers in the line and the sonic averaging time interval. The performance of the simulations is also compared with data from a field test for a standard small-caliber munition, and the predicted and observed target scatter are in good qualitative agreement, supporting the feasibility of the approach.