Can pulsed waterjets be used to clear landmines?

1. Normand Levert, Consultant
967 Chaleur,
Orléans,
Ontario
K1C 2R9
613 834 6798
normand.levert@sympatico.ca
_____________________________________________________________________________
Wednesday, April 17, 2002
Mr. William Bloom
Director
Business Development
VLN Inc
William.bloom@nrc.ca
cc.
M. PJ Morin
FOLLOW THROUGH EVALUATION
PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSIONS WITH VLN INC ON
THE APPLICATION OF FORCED PULSED WATERJET MACHINES FOR
DEMINING OR SIMILAR OPERATIONS
1. On April 11, 2002, Mr. PJ Morin and myself met with Mr. William Bloom
and Dr. Mohan Vijay, of VLN Advanced Technologies Inc. at the NRC Montreal
Street Campus in Ottawa. The purpose of the meeting was to familiarise Mr.
Morin and myself with Forced Pulsed Waterjets technologies and then to explore
possible fields of application in EOD, mine clearing or mine destruction.
2. The presentation included theory and practical demonstrations. There
was as well limited discussion on mine clearing and demilitarisation1.
3. Mr PJ Morin offered a follow-up after discussion between he and I. This
report discusses the potential applications of Forced Pulsed Waterjets
technologies to demining and demilitarisation.
Normand Levert
1
Demilitarisation is a general term to describe the removal of military utility from munitions, either by
destruction, reuse or recycling as required.
NORMAND LEVERT, CONSULTANT, Ontario 120182696, BN 85552 9137

2. Forced Pulsed Waterjet Technologies
100. The main advantage of forced pulsing in waterjets is to considerably
increase the impact force of the waterjet. This results in material removal or
destruction with much less water and power consumption. Pressure
requirements are considerably reduced from typical tens of thousand PSI to a
thousand PSI. An additional advantage would be reduced water consumption,
when compared to more conventional water jet technologies.
101. The main interest of the presentation and subsequent discussion with Mr.
Bloom is the potential application of forced pulsed waterjets to demining or
demilitarisation. The most interesting aspect is the high destructive force that
can be generated using electrical discharges to create the waterjets pulses rather
than mechanical pumps. This approach would be mechanically simpler. It would
also allowed the machinery to be more compact. Both characteristics are
important for potential field applications.
102. The waterjet nozzles would not need to be close to the targets. This stand
off distance is an important characteristic, as it would improve the survivability of
the system in the event of mine detonation. We were not able to assess how
much time, energy and water would be necessary to deal with mines. (There are
more discussions on mines below). VLN Technologies is conducting trials with
simulated pipe bombs for the RCMP. Trial results were too preliminary to
extrapolate conclusions.
Mine clearing or demining - a thorny problem
200. We discussed mine clearing or demining but briefly. "Mine clearing" is
usually a military activity that is limited to removing the mine threat to military
operations, while "Demining" generally refers a humanitarian activity that aims to
remove all "explosive remnants of war", that is all mines and unexploded
ordnance (UXO) from an area. While the two activities have much in common,
they have differing sets of imperatives and thus place different demands on the
methods used to achieve mine disposal. This becomes important when
conceiving materiel for mine clearing or demining.
201. The main challenges for any designers of mine clearing technology are
the random conditions of the tasks and the deliberate attempts to thwart mine
clearing. By far the most formidable challenge is to detect the mines. Typically,
mined areas are left undisturbed, which means that most are overgrown by wild
vegetation. With the passage of time, many of the telltale signs disappear or
worse, the land becomes covered with dense brush that impedes movement, let
alone detection. Most mined areas are found in contested territory, which means
that the land is further contaminated with debris of war, such as scrap metals,
spent munitions and UXOs. All these factors render detection very challenging.
Most detection technologies do not detect landmines, but rather a characteristic
NORMAND LEVERT, CONSULTANT, Ontario 120182696, BN 85552 9137

3. indicative of a landmine. For example,
almost all landmine detectors are metal
detectors. This means that the detectors
give many "nuisance alarms", they
indicate the presence of metal, but this
metal is not a landmine. In all instances,
deminers must investigate the detectors'
signal by digging carefully to find the
object, presuming that it is a landmine for
their own safety.
202. The problem has become more
acute. As manufacturing technology
favoured plastics, the amount of metal
found in landmines, particularly in anti-
personnel mines becomes minuscule.
These pieces of metal - typically the
detonator casing, small springs - are
in difficult to detect non-ferrous
metals. Mine (metal) detector
designers must increase the
sensitivity of detectors, but some
soils - such as Laterites - have
enough magnetic properties to
induce response in many detectors.
When these conditions exist,
deminers must rely on hand
prodding and feel to find mines. Not
only is this very dangerous, but it is
extremely laborious and slow.
203. Mined roads present different problems. Except for long abandoned dirt
roads, mined roads would not have a serious vegetation problem though
overgrown conditions could exist on the verges and ditches alongside the roads.
The detection challenge remains. There are vehicle mounted detection systems
that can sweep for landmines buried under the roadway. As with all other
detection technologies, one can expect "nuisance alarms". Again, in all cases,
mine clearing teams must ascertain the source of the alarm and neutralise all
mines. There are detection technologies that are better able to discern
characteristics more exclusive to landmines and UXO, but they are rather slow.
NORMAND LEVERT, CONSULTANT, Ontario 120182696, BN 85552 9137

4. 204. In clearing roads, the operational balance is to find the optimum
combination of techniques to detect, confirm and deal with landmines. That is, all
alarms must be investigated and all landmines removed or destroyed. If the
detection methodology is very cumbersome, the rate of progress may become
unacceptable. This is more likely to be the case for mine clearing than
humanitarian demining. Typically, the suspected mines need to be unearthed
and then neutralised quickly at acceptable costs - in terms of time, manpower
and logistics.
205. As military (mine clearing) and humanitarian groups have different means
and level of urgencies, the former tend to trade risk for speed and the latter
speed for risk. That is military operations would pay a higher cost, and ultimately
accept a larger remaining risk to gain earlier use of roads. Humanitarian
organisations must however proceed with care to ensure the best possible
removal of landmine threat to the general population. There is an overlap; the
earliest humanitarian operations often coincide with military peace support
operations. Early humanitarian operations need to use the road network to
deliver help. Thus, there may be a niche for speedy treatment of landmines in
roads.
206. Whether in the fields or on roads, the usual methods of disposal is to
uncover the objects by hand. When the objects are UXOs or landmines, they
can be blown in place - the preferred approach - or they can be removed with
slow, careful procedures to be destroyed elsewhere. There are mechanical
means, such as armoured roto-tiller and flails to treat mined areas. These
machines do not deal with individual mines or UXO; rather they apply a treatment
to an entire area of land, to a given depth. There is considerable debate on their
effectiveness, but they have been effective in some circumstances. Mechanical
methods, such as ploughing, flailing or tilling are not viable alternative for road
clearance since they would destroy the road. Heavy metal mine rollers can be
used to activate the mines. Overall, they tend to be 50% effective.
207. A major challenge for any machinery conceived to clear landmine in field
conditions is the unconstrained nature of the problem. There are roughly 300
models of anti-personnel mines and as many models anti tank mines. Soil
conditions will vary from easy to impossible, so would vegetation conditions. It
would be advisable to select a problem with better-defined conditions.
208. Road clearance requires to treat suspected mines. Because of detection
uncertainties, a mine could be within 30 cm of the indicated position, thus the
confirmation / neutralisation method must deal with a cylinder of about 60 cm
diameter and 30 cm depth, in which there may or may not be a mine. There are
few if any systems other than hand digging. South Africa has mounted tined
excavators on armoured vehicles. They unearth the suspected mines and lift
them out of the ground. Disposal becomes much safer when mines are found
NORMAND LEVERT, CONSULTANT, Ontario 120182696, BN 85552 9137

5. and moved in this manner, since their position is known and moving the mines
removes the threat of anti-handling devices.
209. Designers have conceived other systems. One proposal would use 20mm
canon and armour piercing bullets to destroy suspected landmines. Others
would use foam explosives, etc. Whatever technique is proposed, the deminers
will be concerned about the costs of operation. For military applications, costs is
not per se as much a factor, but dependency on logistic support is a major
concern.
Niche application for pulsed waterjet technology
300. There may be a niche application for pulsed waterjet technology in road
mine clearing. This would be the case if pulsed waterjet could be shown to save
time, provide or improve safety, deal equally well with various type pavements
and soils and be effective at neutralising landmines. The perceived
disadvantages of waterjets are the need to provide large quantities of water, the
potential complexity of the machinery and possible vulnerability to mine explosion
damage.
301. In order to interest potential users, it would be essential to develop a
"typical mission day" - that is define a task and then project how a pulsed
waterjet system would perform the mission. This mission day would be used to
estimate the logistical requirements of the system. For example, the number of
operators, the size of vehicle(s) required to move and operate the system. The
mission day determines quantities of consumables required for the mission,
especially water, but as well fuel consumption, any special material consumed in
the operation.
302. Without a typical mission, users will make their own assumptions about
systems consumption and would likely come to very different values than the
system's designers. With a mission, both designers and users will be comparing
on the same basis. I offer an outline mission below. When approaching potential
users, it would be prudent to let them comment on the "typical mission day"
ahead of the first face to face meeting.
PRELIMINARY OUTLINE DESIGN
CONCEPT Need enough of a concept to
determine probable dimensions, mass,
consumption characteristics.
NORMAND LEVERT, CONSULTANT, Ontario 120182696, BN 85552 9137

6. THEORITICAL ROAD MINE CLEARING MISSION
(assumes a non opposed clearing task in daylight)
TRAVEL System is required to travel within a formed task group from a
safe base to the area of work.
Assume a distance in time or in Km.
(take into account that typical driving speed in affected region is
slow)
PREPARATION How long does it take to change from travel to operating
configuration? How many operators are needed?
What skill sets is needed for the conversion?
OPERATION Let us assume 20 Km of road, with an average of one area to
be treated every 100 metres of road.
How much water is required for one treatment?
(To uncover the object?)
(To disarm or disrupt the mine?)
How long is one treatment?
SUSTAINMENT How is the system re supplied?
(the optimum solution might be to carry on day's worth of
supply, but this may be prohibitively heavy2 )
What is the re supply effort? (personnel - materiel)
RETURN How long does it take to prepare the system for road travel?
Assume the return trip is 20 Km longer than the morning trip.
MAINTENANCE What nightly maintenance might be needed to keep the system
available day to day?
What other periodic maintenance might be needed?
The above sample mission day allows designers and users to use a common
frame to discuss advantages, disadvantages and performance.
2
Road network in war afflicted regions are usually in very poor repair. This limits the ability to use larger vehicles.
NORMAND LEVERT, CONSULTANT, Ontario 120182696, BN 85552 9137

7. INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION - MINE STOCK DESTRUCTION
400. We also discussed "Demilitarisation". The destruction of anti-personnel
landmines stocks falls under Demilitarisation. The interesting aspect for pulsed
waterjet technology application is that stock destruction is a much better
restrained problem. There is no detection requirement, the aspect of the
munitions can be controlled, and the process takes place in controlled conditions.
401. Both the USA and Europe have large demilitarisation programmes that
rely on industrial processes to
demilitarise munitions. Some
companies use water cutting to
deal with chemical munitions.
402. The more pragmatic
approach for application of pulsed
water jet technology to
demilitarisation would likely be to
deal with companies who perform
demilitarisation. The use of water
cutting is specific to certain
munitions. The examples that I
am aware of are the destruction of
chemical rounds, where it was
necessary to neutralise the
chemical agents as part of the
demilitarisation process. Other type munitions may not necessarily need this
type treatment.
FOLLOW THROUGH CONTACTS
500. There are two organisations that might be targeted with a road mine
clearing concept. In Canada, this would be the Canadian Centre for Mine Action
Technology. (CCMAT) CCMAT is overseen by National Defence Headquarters
Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) agency. Initial contacts
would be with DRDC (Maj Harry Burke) and the Engineers (LCol Alain
Goudreault). Another agency would be the Geneva International Centre for
Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) ((Centre International pour Déminage
Humanitaire de Genève (CIDHG))). My contacts with the centre are dated. They
have an excellent web site. In the USA, I used to deal with Mr Lawrence (Larry)
J. Nee, who was Chief, Countermine Division.
PM Mines, Countermine and Demolitions
Attn: AMSTA-DSA-MC-C
10205 Burbeck Road
Fort Belvoir, VA 22060-5811
703 704 1970 (lnee@nvl.army.mil)
NORMAND LEVERT, CONSULTANT, Ontario 120182696, BN 85552 9137

8. The USA also have a humanitarian demining programme, but I am out of contact
at this moment.
501. On the demilitarisation side, I have two dated contacts:
The Institute of Munition Clearance Engineers
Phone +44 1304 620082
Fax +44 1304 620014
Email: 100617.1354@compuserve.com
NAMSA (NATO MUNITION SUPPORT AGENCY)
(I do not have contacts, but DFAIT Mine Action Team would have them)
SUMMARY
600. Mine clearing is an extremely complex problem. This challenges
technological solutions, as the problem is usually not easily confined within the
operational characteristic of a machine. Mine clearing of roads would be one
area where the challenges are more confined, and thus possibly more amenable
to mechanical treatment. In demilitarisation, an industrial process destroys
munitions, which means that the conditions are carefully controlled to allow use
of machines. However, not all munitions need to be cut or pierced.
601. Pulsed waterjet technology would be attractive to mine clearing and
demining organisation if it offers clear advantages in speed, safety or efficiency.
It is unlikely that this would be the case for clearing minefields, but could be the
case for clearing roads. The application of pulsed waterjet technology in
demilitarisation would depend on specific munitions and processes.
Normand Levert, Consultant, P Eng, MSc
NORMAND LEVERT, CONSULTANT, Ontario 120182696, BN 85552 9137