Kilgore Flares Company LLC manufactures decoy flares (middle right) that are designed to draw away heat-seeking missiles by mimicking the infrared engine signature of the aircraft from which they are deployed (upper left). Kilgore engineers are using ALGOR multiphysics software to improve reliability of their flares while trimming manufacturing costs through the reduction of rejected material during production. The transient heat transfer analysis shown here (lower middle) simulates a flare component being quenched in water.

PITTSBURGH, PA – March 8, 2004 – ALGOR, Inc., a leading provider of design, analysis and simulation software, has been chosen by Kilgore Flares Company LLC, a member of the Chemring Group PLC and the largest supplier of military countermeasure (decoy) flares to the United States Department of Defense, to supply FEA-based multiphysics software. Kilgore will use the software to trim manufacturing costs through the reduction of rejected material during production and to improve reliability of its flares, which are designed to draw away heat-seeking missiles by mimicking the infrared engine signature of the aircraft from which they are deployed.

“We chose ALGOR after exhaustively researching just about every finite-element and finite-difference software package on the market, including those from ANSYS, COSMOS and MSC.Software,” said Dr. Mark Driver, Director of Advanced Countermeasures Technology at Kilgore Flares. “We needed a PC-based solution with flexible licensing options that could accurately model complex fluid and thermal phenomena and work seamlessly with our Autodesk Inventor and AutoCAD models. ALGOR met these requirements and is easy to use, which enables our engineers to perform sophisticated multiphysics analyses without requiring an advanced degree in numerical analysis. These analyses will enable us to better understand our products’ behavior, quantify the performance envelope, find solutions more quickly and save money by reducing the reject rate.”

Many variables can affect the composition of a decoy flare, with environmental factors such as humidity and temperature potentially leading to the development of flaws during production. These variables influence a decoy flare’s performance, ultimately determining whether or not it will accurately reproduce the target’s infrared signature.

“We are using ALGOR’s multiphysics tools to examine the behavior of the flare material in the manufacturing process,” said Roger Doyle, a Modeling and Simulation Engineer in Kilgore’s Advanced Countermeasure Technology group. “We expect these simulations to provide us with the data we need to codify the mixing of chemicals and produce flares of optimum quality with less experimentation.”

ALGOR’s wide range of simulation capabilities includes static stress and Mechanical Event Simulation (MES) with linear and nonlinear material models, linear dynamics, steady-state and transient heat transfer, steady and unsteady fluid flow, electrostatics, full multiphysics and piping. These analysis capabilities are all available within a complete and easy-to-use interface, FEMPRO, which supports a wide range of CAD solid modelers and includes finite element meshing and model-building tools.

Contact ALGOR or visit ALGOR’s web site for more information.

About Chemring Group PLC/Kilgore Flares Company LLC
Chemring Group PLC is comprised of internationally recognized, brand-leading companies in the fields of air, land and naval defensive countermeasure, marine safety electronic and pyrotechnics and defensive and training military pyrotechnics. Chemring has direct operations in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia and exports to the global marketplace. Chemring's subsidiary, Kilgore Flares Company LLC, based in Toone, Tennessee, is the international market leader in expendable decoys used to protect military aircraft from heat-seeking missile attack. Kilgore products have been used extensively in protecting coalition forces in Iraq.