Effect of explosives charges types on the jet characteristics, penetration performance and fragmentation patterns of shaped charges

Abstract

Different explosive materials have been studied numerically and experimentally to assess the efficiency of a small diameter shaped charge in terms of produced jet characteristics and penetration depth into RHA steel targets. 26 different explosives have been simulated numerically using Autodyn hydrocode, whereas recommended explosives have been loaded into small diameter shaped charges by pressing technique and tested by static firing against RHA targets in order to validate the numerical calculations. The numerical analysis has presented an intensive global view about the variation of the shaped charge jets as a potential of the loaded explosive charge efficiencies. A successful trial has been performed to measure the shaped charge jet velocity using detonation velocity VOD 812 apparatus, where its measured value was only 3.6% different from the numerical one for HMX-V5 explosive. Besides, TITAN (L3) flash X-ray radiograph has also been implemented to explore the jet profile using the same explosive type and to measure its jet tip velocity, which has only 2.1% different from that estimated numerically. Extensive fragmentation analysis has been presented, which showed increase in both the fragment number and the fragment speed when the used explosive charge is of high detonation velocity. CL-20 explosive exhibited the largest jet tip velocity and its scaled collapse velocity was found to be 140% of TNT explosive. The calculated average fragment speed has been validated and the measured fragment speed has only 2.3% difference when compared to the SPH calculations.