Development of FE Models and Measurement of Internal Deformations of Fuze Electronics Using X-Ray MicroCT Data with Digital Volume Correlation

Electronic fuze assemblies may be exposed to harsh environments during prolonged storage, transport and deployment. Under exposure to storage-transport environmental loads including mechanical shock, temperature, vibration and humidity the fuze assemblies may sustain damage without any surface signs of visible degradation. Further, the operational environment requires survivability under high-g loads often in excess of 10,000g. The need for non-destructive test methods to allow for determination of the internal damage and the assessment of expected operational reliability under the presence of accrued damage from prolonged storage is extremely desirable. While a number of non-destructive test methods such as x-ray, and acoustic imaging exist in the state-of-art - they are limited to the acquisition of imaging of the internal damage state without the ability of conducting measurement of deformation under the action of environment loads. In this paper, a new method has been presented for the creation of the finite element models using x-ray micro-computed tomography data. Further, a method has been presented for measurement of internal deformation in fuze assemblies under the action of environment temperature gradients prior to and subsequent to exposure to operational mechanical shock using a combination of x-ray micro-computed tomography and digital volume correlation.