In June 2008 a group of companies came together to demonstrate their capabilities in the field of vehicle protection and testing.
Much of the work undertaken in vehicle blast testing is proprietary and often has national security implications, so can therefore not be shown openly.
In the last two years much experience has been gained in this area by a group of companies who have sometimes worked together and sometimes separately. The Defence Vehicle Dynamics show held at Millbrook Proving Grounds on 25-26 June 2008 was an ideal opportunity to showcase this experience.
The companies involved were Millbrook Proving Grounds, SJH Projects, Ordnance Test Solutions, Jankel Armouring Ltd and Photron. To take advantage of this opportunity, the group came together to undertake an exercise from which would be publicity/display material that we all owned and was free of restrictions.
The vehicle used was an FV432 Armoured Personnel Carrier – a cold war generation vehicle that was available and met our requirements. The vehicle was gutted and thoroughly cleaned so that during the landmine event the cabin space would not fill with dust and debris, obscuring the images.
The outside of the vehicle was painted as if it was being prepared for an NCAP vehicle crash test – this was partly to demilitarise it and to stress that the vehicle was not to operational standards.
A Millbrook Hybrid III crash test dummy was placed into an energy absorbing vehicle developed by Jankel. Photron set up one of their three headed high speed cameras to film the inside of the cabin. Accelerometers and displacement gauges were fitted to the vehicle and seat frame by Ordnance Test Solutions.
Outside the vehicle there were pressure gauges set up by Ordnance Test Solutions and an array of real time and high speed cameras provided by all the participants.
SJH Projects’ role was to plan this trial and coordinate the activity on the day.
An explosive charge was placed under the first road wheel on the driver’s side. This simulated a buried landmine. All the data capture systems and high speed cameras were then armed and checked so that upon firing the maximum amount of material was collected.
The results of everyone’s efforts were as we had all hoped, with some excellent imagery – some can be seen on the gallery, with more to follow.
The vehicle will be on display at DVD itself and will stand out from the usual array of green and brown models.