High-Power Electrically Driven Impulsive Acoustic Source for Target Effects Experiments and Area-Denial Applications

摘要

A variety of acoustic sources are being developed and tested for possible application as special weapons for use in scenarios such as crowd control and area denial that call for less-than-lethal force application. These sources include devices that generate acoustic energy by repetitive combustion or detonation of a fuel-oxidizer mixture. These devices are attractive for development as fieldable weapons because they offer the advantages of simplicity of design and very high-intensity acoustic output from relatively small packages powered by common chemical field. The acoustic signals produced by these devices are typically repetitive impulsive waveforms, similar to those generated by explosives, and are characterized by an initial short-risetime, high positive sound pressure level (SPL) that falls roughly exponentially to a lower-level negative-pressure undershoot. The duration of the positive-pressure phase or pulse is typically on the order of a millisecond. In an effort to deliver significant average acoustic power and possibly excite low-frequency resonances or other nonaural response modes in a target, some of these impulsive combustion sources (ICS's) generate a train of impulses at rates on file order of 10 Hz.