3-

The range over which these data mst be extrapolated in order to permit prediction of megaton
craters is enormously greater than the ranges of

extrapolation commonly accomplished in engineering
or scientific fields. The situation is roughly
equivalent to an attempt to predict the penetration of the projectile from a new anti-tank gun
through armorplate based on observation of many
measurements of the penetration of BB's from an
air rifle through tin cans plus a few measurements

of the penetration of .45 pistol bullets through

pine.

As a result of these facts any extrapolation procedure is inevitably
associatedwith quite a large uncertainty in the final result. In
making any extrapolation it is believed, consequently, that it is of
major importance to indicate the order of magnitude of the uncertainty
involved as well as the extrapolation itself.
At the outset of any attempt to develop extrapolation procedures,
one is faced with:a philosophical choice. On the one hand he may look
critically into the mechanism of the phenomenon end on the basis of
physical or, in this case, mechanical analysis, study the causes, the
effects, and the influence of specific parameters. Alternatively, he
may adopt the attitude Ahat, in a complicated phenomenon such as crater
formation, the mechanismsby which causes and effects are interrelated
are so illknown as to be for’ the moment, unknowable, and hence conclude
that the appropriate approach.is the empirical extrapolation of the
existing data into the range’of[parameters where prediction is desired.
It is the author's opinion that the-second approach is the more realistic one under the circumstances involved in the present problem and that

is the approach described in the és

important deviation from past
that cube root scaling is on this basis

the extrapolation

der of this report.

The most

casioned by this approach is
discarded as a primary tool in

and is used only for assistance in relatively minor

aspects. In adopting an empirical approach, it would of course, be absurd to ignore the information, however meager; in regard to the physical mechanism and particularly in the distinction between the mechanisms
occuring in TNT and in nucleer explostfons. On-'the other hand, it is
believed that too much dependence on cube root scaling is likely to give
the illusion of a precision in prediction unjustified by the facts.

The development described below was undertaken within the framework that the desirable result from a military standpoint ig the construction of graphical or analytical relations such that."knowledge of
the yield, soil, and depth will permit easy prediction of. the crater
dimensions. It is postulated that the shape of a crater ‘for the craters of interest is primarily dependent on its size and-‘hence the first

attempt is to predict crater radius in terms of the three parameters

just mentioned, with the expectation that a later analysis can‘ve made
to predict depth and other shape aspects once the radius prediction has

been accomplished.

Select target paragraph3