Modelling the burial and exposure of unexploded ordnance

Significant amounts of unexploded ordnance (UXO) and discarded military munitions are present on or beneath the seabed. The action of waves and currents causes them to become buried due to scour, settlement, and sediment accretion, or exposed when the bed sediment undergoes rapid or severe erosion. Prediction of UXO burial and exposure requires information on waves and currents, and seabed changes caused by hydrodynamic forcing mechanisms.

Our research with Corvus Works under the USA’s Munitions Response Program of the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program developed software tools that enable site managers to simulate the burial, re-exposure, and mobilization of seafloor objects.

During our research, we used large-scale hydrodynamic and sediment transport models and simulated the environmental conditions on the former Fort Pierce Naval Amphibious Training Base in Florida for the year 2016, including atmospheric and hydrodynamic variables of Hurricane Matthew. 

These simulations generated essential data for the application of a new scour burial model DRAMBUIE 3.0, and for the design and testing of site management tool, UXOmob. The software provides site managers accurate predictions at sensible spatial and temporal scales within an acceptable timeframe, typically within a few days, allowing them to make informed decisions regarding ongoing monitoring, significantly reducing the frequency of repeated and expensive surveys for those locations where the risk of object migration is low under the prevailing environmental conditions.