Prototype Improvements & Designs
IPS has provided many special prototypes over the years as requested by the Army. One, in particular, involved pouring molten explosives into an array of Burster Tubes. The conventional method poured from a single nozzle into a trough aligned over a straight row of Burster Tubes. This filled the first tubes quickly and took a long time to reach the tubes on the far end of the straight trough. The new design presented by IPS was a round configuration where a single nozzle poured the explosive mixture onto a central cone where it distributed it through grooves in a spoke pattern to two circular rows of Burster Tubes. The entire fixture including the pouring head was steam heated to keep the explosive mixture from solidifying during the pouring process. The U.S. Army obtained a patent on the design with IPS’s approval.