Applying statistical engineering to the development of a ballistic impact flash model

Military aircraft must often fly in hostile environments. Missile explosions generate fragments that may impact the aircraft. These fragment impacts can penetrate the aircraft and may cause flash fires external and internal to the aircraft which may cause on-board fires. Aircraft survivability and vulnerability analyses seek to improve aircraft design to survive such flash events. These analyses have been hampered by the lack of a model of the ballistic impact flash event suitable for inclusion in the existing analytical model suite. This work defines the problem domain of interest, relates how the use of statistical engineering improved the live-fire testing and data analysis processes and recounts the development of the ballistic impact flash event model currently in use in the Joint Survivability testing and analysis domain.