Layered Pre-fragmentation Warhead Reveals Strong Shock Wave Effect

Abstract

A series of ten experiments with pre-fragmented steel spherical caps was performed. The results show that when more than one layer of fragments is driven by an explosive, a deficient fragment beam is obtained compared to the fragments beam obtained from one layer. The fragments beam formed by several layers may probably be effective only in cases where the kinetic energy used by the fragments for carrying out the target destruction comes mainly from the initial mutual velocity of the warhead and target and not solely from the explosive. This is shown to result from the fact that the fragments pressed by the explosion wave front pressure act like elastically loaded springs, and when they get unloaded, their released elastic energy acts on the neighboring layer, thus changing the velocity of the individual fragments. The statistical nature of this velocity change is also discussed.