WATERVLIET ARSENAL, N.Y. (March 31, 2015) -- Army weapons research engineers at the Watervliet Arsenal just announced that they have designed a significant improvement to the M119 105mm towed-howitzer system that if adopted by the U.S. Army will reduce Soldiers' risk to health complications from blast overpressures.
"After three years of computer-aided design and prototype development, we just began testing at the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona an enhanced muzzle brake for the 105mm howitzer system," said Alan Ng, a mechanical engineer with the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development, and Engineering Center's Benét Laboratories at Watervliet.
Dan Crayon, a Benét Labs supervisor, said the currently fielded muzzle brake, which is the component at the end of the barrel that redirects muzzle pressures, limits the daily allowed number of rounds that a gun crew can safely fire due to extreme blast overpressures.
The new double-baffle muzzle brake may potentially increase the allowed number of rounds that gun crews can safely fire by reducing the harmful effects of sustained exposure to blast overpressures, Crayon said.
This test seems to be timely as just last year the U.S. Navy and Army worked on a joint research project at Fort Sill, Okla., to measure the effects of concussion, traumatic brain injury and blast events on military personnel due to the firing of a howitzer. Fort Sill is the home to the Army's Fires Center of Excellence.
"The effects of blast overpressure from firing a howitzer can have the same effect as an explosion or even a non-combat blow to the head," said Lt. Col. Chris Compton, the former 2-2nd Field Artillery commander whose Soldiers participated in the research.
Additionally, howitzer blast overpressures produce a significant impulse noise that may degrade Soldiers' hearing over time, Crayon said. The enhanced muzzle brake has the potential to reduce impulse noise by up to 40 percent.
The M119 Howitzer was originally a British designed gun; however, ARDEC's Benét Labs is the current design activity for the M20 Cannon on the M119 Howitzer and has been re-engineering product improvements for the M20 Cannon since the weapon system was fielded in the 1990s. The Watervliet Arsenal manufactures the M20 cannon.
According to Ng, this is truly a collaborative effort between Benét Labs, the ARDEC Weapons Systems and Technology Directorate, the Program Manager for Towed Artillery Systems, and the two Army arsenals - the Watervliet Arsenal and the Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois.
"Rock Island Arsenal used our computer-aided designs to produce a casting," Ng said. "Once we had the casting, we had the Watervliet Arsenal's manufacturing center machine the casting into its objective or test configuration."
John Zayhowski, who is an Arsenal machinist work leader and the apprentice program supervisor, said that his machinists were able to quickly manufacture a prototype muzzle brake due to the close proximity of the manufacturing center to Benét Labs.
"Because Benét Labs is only a five minute walk from the manufacturing center, we were able to work hand-in-hand with the engineers who designed this muzzle brake," Zayhowski said. "During the design process, we also took advantage of Benét's 3-D printing capability to produce a resin model of the muzzle brake that we could use to prove out our machining process."
Zayhowski said that for prototype machining or for the launch of a new product line the Arsenal traditionally has a long lead time to get a casting or a forging in from an outside vendor. Once the vendor's first piece has passed a thorough quality control inspection, then Arsenal machinists will use that piece to the test tooling and the machining processes.
This can be a very expensive process, as well as time consuming, Zayhowski said. But with the 3-D model, Arsenal machinists were able to prove out their machining process within days versus months, as well as complete the process at a fraction of the cost.
The experimental blast overpressure firing is currently underway at Yuma Proving Grounds, said design engineer Bob Carson. To date, the live-fire test results show very good comparison to blast overpressure reduction predictions formulated through extensive Computational Fluid Dynamics modeling analysis.
According to Carson, blast overpressure reductions are on the order of 20 to 30 percent depending on round type, gun elevation and crew location.
Ng added that this is the second major improvement in recent years that will improve Soldiers' safety for this weapon system that Benét Labs engineers have designed.
In 2011, Benét engineers designed and fielded an improved breechblock for the M119 howitzer. That modification eliminated the need for a Soldier to reach behind the cannon in the path of the recoil during a misfire to recock the weapon, and it corrected a safety issue that allowed the firing pin to protrude when the gun was in the safe position.
The Watervliet Arsenal is currently manufacturing two more prototype muzzle brakes that are projected to undergo component durability testing at the Yuma Proving Ground sometime in May 2015, and the live-fire testing should be completed at the Yuma Proving Ground in June of this year.
If the Army adopts this enhanced muzzle brake, the arsenal workforce hopes a multimillion dollar contract will soon follow with production to begin as early as 2016.
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Benét Laboratories is a Department of the Army research, development and engineering facility located at the Watervliet Arsenal. It is a part of the Weapons & Software Engineering Center (WSEC) under the Armament Research, Development, and Engineering Center (ARDEC), which is located at Picatinny Arsenal, N.J.
The Watervliet Arsenal is an Army-owned-and-operated manufacturing facility and is the oldest, continuously operating arsenal in the United States, having begun operations during the War of 1812. It celebrated its 200th anniversary in July 2013.
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