Downloaded from https://www.everyspec.com AMCP 706.210 FUZES PART ONE-FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION * 1-1 DEFINITION AND PURPOSE OF A FUZE There is also a wide variety of fuze related com- ponents, such as power sources, squibs, initia- The word fuze is used to describe a wide vari- tors, timers, sating and arming (integrating) de- ety of devices used with munitions to provide vices, cables, and control boxes which are some- basically the functions of (a) sating, i.e., keeping times developed, stocked, and issued as indivi- the munition safe for storing, handling, (includ- dual end items but which in the overall picture ing accidental mishandling), and launching or constitute a part of the fuzing system.
emplacing; (b) arming, i.e., sensing the environ- Leading nations such as the U.S.A. employ ment(s) associated with actual use including the most advanced technology available in the safe separation and thereupon aligning explo- design of modem weapons and are constantly sive trains, closing switches and/or establishing advancing the state-of-the-art. This is particu- other links to enable the munition; and (c) fir- larly true of fuzes because of their important ing, i.e., sensing the point in space or time at and exacting role, constituting in effect the which initiation is to occur and effecting such brain of the munition. This handbook in the initiation.
See also MIL-STD-444, Nomenclature Engineering Design Handbook Series is con- and Definitions in the Ammunition Area.t cemed with the basic principles underlying the There is a very wide variety of munitions in design of fuzes. Since the final design of any existence and new ones are continuously being fuze will depend upon the required role and developed. They include artillery ammunition performance and upon the ingenuity of the de- (nuclear and non-nuclear), mortar ammunition, signer, attention in the handbook is focused on bombs, mines, grenades, pyrotechnics, atomic these basic principles.
Illustrations of applica- demolition munitions, missile warheads (nuclear tions are purposely kept as simplified as possible, and non-nuclear), and other munition items. leaving the final design approaches, as they Because of the variety of types and the wide must be, to the fuze designer. range of sizes, weights, yields, and intended usage, it is natural that the configuration, size, and complexity of fuzes vary also over a wide 1-2 FUZE ACTION range.
Fuzes extend all the way from a rela- tively simple device such as a grenade fuze to Inherent to the understanding of fuze de- a highly sophisticated system or subsystem such sign is the concept of the progression of the as a radar fuze for a missile warhead. In many action of the explosive train starting with ini- instances the fuze is a single physical entity- tiation and progressing to the burst of the maui such as a grenade fuze-while in other instances charge in the warhead. Initiation as the word two or more interconnected components placed implies, sterts with an input "signal," such as in various locations within or even outside the target sensing, impact, or other.
This "signal" mrnition make up the fuze or fuzing system. then must be amplified by such devices as a detonator (first stage of amplification), a lead Franklin Institute Research Laboratories. Valuable con- (third sage of amplification) which has an ex- tributions were made by C. T. Davey, P. F. Mohrbach, plosive output of sufficient force to detonate and M. R. Smith. the main charge. Since the detonator contains *This handbook was revised by Gunther Cohn, The (second stage of amplification), and a booster tDistinct fuze terms drr defined in the Glossary. explosives which are very sensitive as required 1.1