(591b) Design for Demilitarization - Be Creative Now or Pay Me Later

Synopsis: This presentation will share the progress made while serving on the Army Program Manager (PM) for Demil's Integrated Process Team (IPT) established in fiscal year 2003 to implement “Design for Demil” (DFD) among the services. The comments on the IPT participation are made from the standpoint of a Navy Activity, Indian Head Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center, which is experienced in basic and applied munitions R&D, munitions production and demil.

Abstract: The Army PM Demil Strategic Plan included DFD as a key goal. The program now includes six pillars deemed important for DFD implementation: establishment of official policy; development of metrics; creation of helpful tools, one of which will be a DFD handbook; publishing lessons learned from demil experience; devising a template of contractual requirements for munitions contractors; and participation on the IPT.

Former practice led munitions design engineers to focus on performance. As a result there were problems costing time, money and possibly increasing risk when the munition was subjected to demil. These may have involved toxic constituents, hard to disassemble components or other challenges. Demil can drastically raise life cycle cost and diminish readiness. The importance of life cycle management, reaching from the genesis of the munition to the demilitarization, has refocused design.

This presentation will give examples of munitions which have designs leading to problematical demil, such as the Army's Adam Mine; discuss desirable design characteristics such as modularity; energetic material designed for easy demil; resource, recovery and recycling; and minimization of toxic materials of construction. All of these can affect the management of the munition throughout its life cycle, not just at its end of life.

As well, it will discuss progress in educating government and contract design engineers about DFD concepts, progress in informing program managers of the importance of DFD; and success in placing stronger DFD requirement language in acquisition directives.