JOTP-011
5 December 2014
APPENDIX A. BACKGROUND/RATIONALE
ANNEX 2. OPERATING TESTS
A.2-2 COMPONENT LEVEL TESTS (APPENDIX D, ANNEX 2)
A.2-2.1 Rocket Motor Tests.
Static firing and case burst tests are performed to determine the probability of catastrophic motor
case rupture during firing operations. All munitions must have been subjected to extreme
environmental stresses, such that the characteristic variation of the rocket motor pressure data can
be obtained during the static firing and burst tests.
A.2-2.1.1 Static Firing (Appendix D, Annex 2, Paragraph D.2-1).
These tests are performed to measure maximum internal operating pressures and provide data to
determine any changes of motor burn performance that may result from environmental exposure.
To induce the maximum operating pressure, and to assess thermal liner/bond line integrity, the
rocket motors are static fired under both high and low temperature conditions. The high
temperature tests should be conducted at 63 °C or the unpackaged SRE. The cold temperature
tests should be conducted at -46 °C. Although these values may be more severe than the
manufacturers recommended upper and lower firing temperatures for munition performance, the
extreme values should be used to assess safety aspects of the motor firing under worst case service
conditions. Appropriate precautions should be taken if the firing temperature exceeds the
manufacturer recommendations.
A.2-2.1.2 Burst (Appendix D, Annex 2, Paragraph D.2-2).
Burst tests are performed to measure the internal pressure required to burst the rocket motor.
Characterization of the effects of the bursting motor is a secondary objective. Hydrostatic burst
testing is the most commonly used test method and may be conducted with or without propellant.
Evidence of motor case structural integrity should be obtained from factory fresh motor case burst
testing and from environmentally stressed motor case burst testing to determined the susceptibility
of the case material and seals to degradation as a result of sequential environmental testing.
A.2-2.2 Other Pressure Vessels (Appendix D, Annex 2, Paragraph D.2-3).
Appropriate burst tests should be conducted on any other pressure vessel in the munition following
sequential environmental testing. This may be accomplished either through component level
operational tests in the Analytical Flow or firing safety tests in the Empirical Flow.
A.2-2.3 Warhead Arena Trials (Appendix D, Annex 2, Paragraph D.2-4).
The safe separation distance is determined by the warhead fragment characteristics (size, mass,
velocity, and spatial dispersion). A sample size of at least four is required because only a portion
of the total number of fragments produced is collected in the recovery medium. The sample size
must be large enough to reliably evaluate fragmentation characteristics in order to determine the
A.2-2
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