Report of Test on Engineering Design and Safety Evaluation of 40mm Floating Flare

摘要

This report describes the environmental testing and the subsequent operational performance of the 40mm Floating Flare. Environmental testing included sequential rough handling, high humidity, waterproofness, vibration, forty-foot drop, and high and low temperature storage. Performance testing involved the evaluation of delay times, burn times, range, flight characteristics, flotation characteristics, and the altitude of functioning. It is concluded with reservation that the 40mm Floating Flare is safe for handling and use. The rough handling caused the nose caps to come off and they had to be replaced before continuing the testing. It was not determined whether a hazard exists if a cartridge is inadvertently fired without the nose cap in place. The cartridges in the forty-foot drop did not explode and were safe to handle afterwards. During testing there were no misfires at launching and all launchings were normal, presenting no hazard in that respect. A fire hazard does exist when the flare does not land in water. The extreme heat of the burning flare easily ignites grasses or brush. During performance testing, three major types of malfunctions occurred, anyone of which prevented the complete operation of the flare. They are: (1) failure to function in flight, (2) failure to eject the flare after functioning, (3) failure to remain afloat after normal ejection and impact in water. With a total of 187 cartridges fired, these three types of failures combined to produce an overall failure rate of about 30% including the control group. Excluding the control group, the failure rates was 32% and the failure rate for the control group alone was about 17% indicating a definite effect on the munition from the environmental conditioning. The most serious failure rate occurred with the high humidity group (67%) which had 4 'no functions or ejections' and 4 flotation failures. Temperature conditioning appeared to be a very significant factor in effecting performance.