Emission Spectroscopy of Hypervelocity Impacts on Aluminum, Organic and High-Explosive Targets

Laboratory experiments of hypervelocity impacts on aluminum, nylon and high-explosive targets are presented. Spectral measurements of the impact flash are recorded, together with radiometric measurements to derive the temperature of the flash. Such experiments aim at demonstrating that the impact flash produced by a ballistic missile interception contains the spectral information required to identify the content of the intercepted missile. It is shown that the elements that are part of the aluminum projectile and/or aluminum target are successfully identified from the obtained spectra. For the case of a nylon/aluminum target organic molecular emission lines characteristic of CN and C2 are also identified. The CN molecular band is also observed for the case of a high-explosive target, although the detection of organic elements from such targets is more difficult than for nylon targets. In most cases, the temperature of the impact flash measured using the radiometer is in the range 2500 – 4000 K, whereas a comparison between simulated and experimental spectra shows temperatures up to 9000 K. Hence a conclusive impact flash temperature could not be obtained.