Military Engineering 2010 — MineBurner UXO Clearance System

The MineB­urn­er is a patent­ed sys­tem devel­oped to dis­pose of explo­sive rem­nants of war using non-explo­sive com­po­nents or sub­sys­tems by com­bin­ing oxy­gen with liq­uid petro­le­um gas to pro­vide a high tem­per­a­ture cut­ting flame that burns through the case of a land­mine and ignites the con­tents. The flame has a tem­per­a­ture of 2,300° C and can pen­e­trate 3mm steel. Oxy­gen is obtained by pump­ing atmos­pher­ic air through a fil­ter to remove the nitro­gen. Liq­uid petro­le­um (cook­ing) gas is local­ly avail­able, there­by elim­i­nat­ing the require­ment to trans­port haz­ardous car­go to the mine­field. The MineB­urn­er and acces­sories are all air-trans­port clas­si­fied as non-hazardous. 

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The MineB­urn­er con­sits of the fol­low­ing reusable components: 

• Bat­tery Charg­er Unit (1)
• Field Mod­ule Unit (5)
• Blad­der Assem­bly (2)
• flame-proof cov­er for the Blad­der Assem­bly (3)
• Blad­der Filler Unit (4)
• Remote Fir­ing Unit

The remote fir­ing unit enables the oper­a­tor to ini­tial­ize the igni­tion from a dis­tance of 2km+ depend­ing on the use of repeater and the land­scape. And there is no line-of-sight required. For the increase of effi­cien­cy the oper­a­tor can use ten field mod­ules to burn ten tar­gets simultaneously. 

The blad­der assem­bly con­sists of three sep­a­rate blad­ders that store the gas­es. The first is filled with 0.5 liter liq­uid petro­le­um gas (LPG), the sec­ond with 2.5 liter Oxy­gen with up to 0.4 bar and the third with 2.5 liter com­pressed air to dri­ve the oth­er gas­es. All blad­ders con­tained togeth­er in strong stitched seam out­er cov­er. The oxy­gen and LPG hose from the blad­der assem­bly are con­nect­ed to the field mod­ule unit and from there the hoses with the igni­tion and flame detec­tion cables are lead­ing to the tar­get. The field mod­ule unit sounds a 10 sec­ond audi­ble alarm via its installed siren before the igni­tion and mon­i­tors and trans­mits the mea­sure­ments about the flame and gas mix­ture to the remote fir­ing unit. 

Spec­i­fi­ca­tions

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Remote Fir­ing Unit

• Con­tains trans­ceiv­er and fir­ing cir­cuit test log­ic. Oper­a­tor only PIN keyed pow­er on switch. Siren sounds for 10 sec­onds before ignitiation.
• Con­ti­nu­ity wire burn-through sig­nals flame detec­tion back to RFU via repeater sta­tion tranceivers.
• Range 2Km+. No line-of-sight requirements.
• Dimen­sions 170 x 85 x 35mm. Weight 500g.
• Rub­berised pro­tec­tive holster.
• Shower/Dust proof shoul­der bag.
• Autho­ri­sa­tion: PIN code 
• Acti­va­tion pro­ce­dure: Simul­ta­ne­ous oper­a­tion of two but­tons required
• But­ton descrip­tion: Robust, tam­per-proof, lam­i­nat­ed touch pad 
• Sta­tus indi­ca­tion: 3 LEDs, “Low bat­tery”, “Fire” and “Error”
• Pow­er: 9.2V NiMHyd rechargeable 
• Com­mu­ni­ca­tion: Two-way (acknowl­edge­ment of each command)
• Repeater Sta­tions: 2, with 9.2V NiMHyd recharge­able batteries.
• 20 hour con­tin­u­ous usage

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MineB­urn­er Field Mod­ule

• Robust case con­nect­ed through con­trol pan­el via Igni­ti­a­tion Unit to 5 metres steel cased Deliv­ery Sheath con­tain­ing gas hose with igni­tion and flame detec­tion cables con­nect­ed to dis­pos­able ceram­ic nozzle.
• High vol­ume inter­mit­tent siren fit­ted in case.
• Dimen­sions: 250mm x 250mm x 150mm. Weight 5.5 Kgs.
• Radio trans­ceiv­er and elec­tron­ics con­trol three sole­noid valves to open gas sup­ply through reg­u­la­tors to mix­er and on through deliv­ery hose. Also switch­es on GloWire igni­tion coil at the noz­zle to ignite the LPG.
• Pow­er on: Tog­gle switch with­in Field Mod­ule. Includes bat­tery and cir­cuit test functions
• Warn­ing Cycle: 10 sec­ond audi­ble alarm.
• Flame Igni­tion: GloWire
• Flame Feed­back: Con­ti­nu­ity mea­sure­ment, flame caus­es open-cir­cuit mes­sage to return to Remote Fir­ing Unit.
• Shut­down: Valve shut­down if no flame.
• Oxy­gen Boost: Increase oxy­gen sup­ply 20 sec­onds after flame detection
• Pow­er: 12 VDC, sealed lead-acid bat­tery (1.3 Ah) Bat­tery iso­la­tion SW.

RF Link

• Link Type: Two-way transceiver
• Car­ri­er Fre­quen­cy: 868 MHz
• Mod­u­la­tion: Fre­quen­cy Shift Key­ing (FSK)
• Com­mand Length: 24 bits per command
• Oper­a­tional Dis­tance: 2Km+. No line-of-sight requirements

Bat­tery Charg­ing Unit	Blad­der Filler Unit	Field Mod­ule pro­tect­ing Blad­der Assem­bly from pos­si­ble blast
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10 lead acid 12v and 3 RFU sys­tem NiMHyd bat­ter­ies auto­mat­ed charg­ing from mains AC. Ruggedised alu­mini­um car­ry case.	LPG and oxy­gen sup­ply-hose connections. Air com­pres­sor. 12v DC elec­tri­cal sup­ply from stan­dard vehi­cle bat­tery pow­ers tyre pump with built in reg­u­la­tor to pro­vide com­pressed air. Gauges. Ruggedised alu­mini­um car­ry case.

Pic­ture and data source: MineBurner