The Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (LZH) is working with project partners to develop a process for disarming underwater world war munitions using lasers. The aim is to cause as little damage as possible to the ecosystem while saving time and money.
There are an estimated 1.6 million tons of war munitions lying on the seabed in the North Sea and Baltic Sea. Unforeseen detonation or corrosion can release explosives into the sea, with serious consequences for humans, animals and the entire ecosystem. In the UNLOWDET project, scientists from the LZH are therefore working together with the companies LASER on demand GmbH and EGGERS Kampfmittelbergung GmbH to find a solution: they are researching how explosive ordnance can be disarmed underwater remotely using lasers.
The project partners are using the "low-order detonation" approach, in which, in contrast to "high-order detonation", only a small part of the explosive is detonated. In the first step, a laser beam is used to create a defined gap in the explosive device and weaken the shell. In the second step, the laser beam is then used to trigger a low-order detonation so that the detonator is detached and the detonation chain is interrupted.
