The spreading and occurrence of trace amounts of explosives in realistic detection scenarios
Publish date: 2008-11-24
Report number: FOI-R--2578--SE
Pages: 33
Written in: Swedish
Keywords:
- explosives particles
- trace amounts
- IED
- spreading
- collection
- detection
Abstract
Knowledge about how and to what extent trace amounts of explosives are spread from a concealed IED (improvised explosive device) or its production site is of great importance for the development of efficient sensors and for understanding how to use them optimally. Traces of explosives can be found either as particles or in gas phase. In both cases, there exist a need for acquiring knowledge about the amount, the appearance and the spreading of these traces. This report gives a background on particle spreading and its related issues as well as on vapour phase spreading; in the latter case, special focus has been dedicated to hydrogen peroxide. The report is also a documentation of the experimental scenarios, which will be performed within the project next year. The scenarios are made so that they correspond to realistic situations that can arise when applying point detection and standoff detection to reveal concealed IEDs or their production sites. The efforts are to greatest possible extent coordinated with explosives detection projects that are run at FOI.