Joanna Crews
The U.S. Army has awarded Southwest Research Institute a potential $4.3 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract contract to help the Army Research Laboratory update computational analysis tools for armor and warfighter survivability.
SwRI said Tuesday it aims to model human injury under a $100,000 initial order and advance fracture models with the Elastic, Plastic, Impact Computations technology under a separate $30,000 order.
Dan Nicolella and Tim Holmquist, both researchers at SwRI’s mechanical engineering division, will spearhead the projects.
The IDIQ contract has three base years and options that could extend work up to five years.
“This contract allows the U.S. government and ARL to utilize SwRI expertise in high-rate material behavior, computational modeling, and up-to-full-scale testing to develop better equipment to increase the survivability of the warfighter,” said James Walker, director of SwRI’s engineering dynamics department.
Walker added the contract may fund work related to certain development programs of the Army that may require a large two-stage light gas gun technology designed to launch projectiles at a speed of up to 15,600 miles per hour.
