An improved analysis of 72 sensitivity datasets
conference paper
This paper addresses the statistical estimation of sensitivities of energetic materials to friction and impact. The NATO Standardisation Agreements (STANAGs) for sensitivity testing still rely on a pen-and-paper approximation of maximum likelihood estimation from 1948. Although useful for its time, this approximation is today unnecessary as maximum likelihood estimation is easily implemented in virtually any general-purpose programming language and spreadsheet software. In this paper we show how the use of the approximation manifests itself in practice by analysing 72 datasets for impact and friction sensitivity of multiple energetic materials. For a substantial minority of the datasets, the use of the approximation is not valid, as a certain simplification of the likelihood function cannot be applied. Despite the STANAGs’ requirement to discard such datasets, we find that the maximum likelihood estimates exist and provide perfectly valid results for all of them. For the remaining datasets, where the use of the approximation is valid, we find that it performs poorly when constructing confidence intervals. For extreme quantiles, we obtain a relative error as high as 20%. In conclusion, our paper serves as further evidence that the 1948 approximation should be abolished and replaced with direct maximum likelihood estimation.
TNO Identifier
1011931
Source title
27th Seminar on New Trends in Research of Energetic Material NTREM, Pardubice, Czech Republic, 2-4 April 2025
Collation
11 p.
Place of publication
Den Haag
Files
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