At-Sea Evaluation of the Obscuration Characteristics of a Hygroscopic Aerosol Smoke Produced by the CY85A Pyrotechnic

摘要

For the past six years, Calspan, in collaboration with the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and the Naval Weapons Center (NWC) has conducted a laboratory evaluation of the extinction characteristics of the CY85A pyrotechnic and related formulations under development at NWC. The overall objective of the Navy program is the development of an effective screening agent to both visible and IR wavelength radiation utilizing pyrotechnically-generated hygroscopic aerosol. This year, under contract with NRL, Calspan participated in NRL's at-sea evaluation of the CY85A pyrotechnic smoke obscurant. The evaluation was conducted as one phase of NRL's Atmospheric Physics Cruise, 1983. The specific objective of the current program was to evaluate the extinction characteristics of the CY85A pyrotechnic during the at-sea trial. Measurements were made of the smoke's mass loading, scattering coefficient, mass extinction coefficient, aerosol size distribution and chemical composition. Additionally, the at-sea measurements provided a means of evaluating the capability of large-scale chamber tests to adequately simulate the in-field extinction performance of the pyrotechnics.