Is it Possible to Increase the Share of Military Women in the Norwegian Armed Forces？

Ever since Norway introduced general conscription for men in 1897, the participation of women in the Norwegian Armed Forces （NorAF） has been an issue for discussion. In 1984 the NorAF introduced occupational equality for men and women. This means that women have the same possibilities and rights as men in the whole organization. However, the share of women in the NorAF （9%） has not increased over the years, and the goal of 20% seems to be hard to reach. Based on data from the project ＂Research on age cohorts for the NorAF＂, this paper presents the concept, theory and empirically based hypotheses behind nine initiatives that I believe will contribute to a substantial increase in the number of women in the NorAF. The initiatives are a combination of short-term, long-term, preventive and drastic measures. The author argues that the suggested measures will affect future recruitment, retention, military （masculine） culture and the selection process of military personnel to the NorAF.

Strain rate dependency and fragmentation pattern of expanding warheads

For the characterization of the behaviors of a metal material in events like expanding warheads, it is necessary to know its strength and ductility at high strain rates, around 104e105/s. The flyer plate impact testing produces the uniform stress and strain rates but the testing is expensive. The Taylor test is relatively inexpensive but produces non-uniform stress and strain fields, and the results are not so easily inferred for material modeling. In the split-Hopkinson bar(SHB), which may be used in compression, tension and torsion testing, the strain rates never exceeds 103/s. In the present work, we use the expanding ring test where the strain rate is 104e105/s. A streak camera is used to examine the expanding ring velocity, and a water tank is used to collect the fragments. The experimental results are compared with the numerical simulations using the hydrocodes AUTODYN, IMPETUS Afea and a regularized smooth particle(RSPH) software. The number of fragments increases with the increase in the expansion velocity of the rings. The number of fragments is similar to the experimental results. The RSPH software shows much the same results as the AUTODYN where the Lagrangian solver is used for the ring. The IMPETUS Afea solver shows a somewhat different fragmentation characteristic due to the node splitting algorithm that induces pronounced tensile splitting.

Round robin using the depth of penetration test method on an armour grade alumina

The depth of penetration(DOP)method is a well-known ballistic test method for characterisation and ranking of ceramic armour materials.The ceramic tile is bonded to a backing material of semi-infinite thickness,and the penetration depth of the projectile gives a measure of the performance of the ceramic.There is,however,an inherent variability in the results from this test method.In this work,the accuracy and the variability of the DOP method has been investigated in a round robin exercise.Six ballistic test centres took part in the exercise.A test protocol was developed,in which the threat type(projectile and impact conditions)and a procedure on how to prepare the targets were specified.The targets consisted of alumina tiles of two different thicknesses that were bonded to polycarbonate backing cubes.Two different 7.62 mm armour piercing projectiles were employed;one with a hard steel core and one with a tungsten carbide core.The projectiles and the other materials all came from single material batches in order to avoid batch-to-batch variations in material properties.These materials were distributed between the ballistic test centres.The test results of the different ballistic test facilities were collected and compared.There was not a lot of variation between the average DOP values obtained at each laboratory,but the variation in penetration depth between shots was high.The consequence of this variation may be less confidence in the test results,and a statistical method was used to evaluate the required number of tests that are sufficient to obtain an average result with high confidence.In most cases,the required number of tests is much higher than what is practically feasible.This work was conducted as part of the European Defence Agency-project CERAMBALL.