Intrumented surrogate munitions for nearshore unexploded ordnance mobility studies — Design and measurement capabilities

The presence of unexploded ordnance (UXO), also referred to as munitions, in the nearshore environment constitutes a risk for the public. Studies of munitions mobility carried out on the foreshore (swash zone) are scarce requiring further analysis. Investigation of munitions mobility/burial through field experiments requires the use of realistic surrogates. This paper focuses on the development of smart surrogate munitions for mobility studies in the swash zone. The caliber of the munitions replicated ranges from 0.099 m to 0.155 m. Surrogates are made smart by housing sensors that measure different components of motion. Internal sensors consist of inertial motion units (for acceleration, angular velocity and orientation), pressure transducers (for water depth above surrogate), shock recorders (for high frequency acceleration) and an in-house designed array of optical sensors (for burial/exposure and rolling). Large scale laboratory tests were conducted to investigate the surrogate design and their mobility under different hydrodynamic forcing conditions.