Aircraft vulnerable-area decomposition method in the overlapping region of components

At present, the precise calculation methods, namely, Markov chain or tree diagram, for aircraft survivability or vulnerability to multiple hits by nonexplosive penetrators cannot deal with the situation where the components overlap in an arbitrary manner. This paper, based on probability theory and the analysis of the kill states of aircraft and components, proposes a method for decomposing the vulnerable area in the components' overlapping region. After vulnerable-area decomposition, the overlapping region becomes several individual "broadly vulnerable components" with different kill properties, and then the multiple-hit vulnerability computation of aircraft with multiple redundant sets and arbitrary overlapping among components can be proceeded utilizing Markov chain or tree diagram method. The examples provide the computation and analysis of the cumulated kill probability of aircraft exposed to the threat of multiple hits and demonstrate the general applicability and feasibility of the proposed vulnerable-area decomposition method in the components' overlapping region.