The Navy continues to improve the Tomahawk cruise missiles to meet the war fighters’ needs for a more flexible and “tactical” precision strike weapon. As technologies are developed to provide new operational capabilities and/or to reduce costs, mechanical testing is often performed to verify mechanical properties before implementation.
Tomahawk cruise missiles are designed to fly at extremely low altitudes at high subsonic speeds. They are launched from destroyers, submarines or aircraft, and can hit a target with incredible accuracy. The missiles were successfully used in several conflicts, beginning with Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
A cruise missile is basically a 20-foot by 21-inch, pilotless airplane with an 8.5-foot wingspan. At launch, these missiles include a 550-pound solid-propellant rocket motor. This solid rocket booster accelerates the missile until the wings, tail fins, and air inlet unfold and a turbofan engine takes over for the cruise portion of the flight. Once its job is finished, the booster falls away.
The missile is capable of flying 500 to 1,000 miles to deliver a 1,000-pound high-explosive bomb to a target. When the bomb explodes, the $500,000 to $1,000,000 cruise missile is destroyed. Although very costly, they are the weapon of choice for a variety of quick-strike operations, both because of their accuracy and their effectiveness in evading detection by the enemy.
When a new case and closure for the motor that launches the Tomahawk was in development, mechanical testing was conducted on the parts after heat treatment to ensure that all physical properties were achieved in the process. The testing laboratory performed tensile testing on mechanical test specimens machined from the motor casings and closures to get the required results.
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