Development of model-based system engineering methodology to predict modular artillery charge system performance

Abstract

The performance measures of modular artillery charge system (MACS) are problematic during the early development phases since the ballistic effect of all possible variations of the input variables cannot be validated through testing. This lack of prediction rises a pressure on the MACS system engineers in the integration and verification phases of the system during the development lifecycle. The research identifies the sources of error that determine the performance of MACS in both launch phase and in-flight phase of the projectile. The research derives the errors in the launch phase and investigates their implication to the overall performance (in form of dispersion and accuracy). Therefore, the research methodology gathers variations of MACS components (charge and projectile) and executes simulation of overall system performance. Thus, such a methodology would be used to serve as a tool to provide the capability for the system engineers to predict and determine MACS performance parameters and develop IB and EB specifications. The study resulted in that the first stage of the methodology, which is IB specification modelling shows inadequate tolerances in charges muzzle velocity (MV) values for all MACS configurations. The muzzle velocity variability (MVV) and projectile mass variations lead to generate dispersion and inaccuracy in firing as they are performance measurement of MACS.