A special design of composite armor with high velocity diverting capability against shaped charge warhead

Shaped-charge warheads constitute a distinctive, highly effective, and comparatively inexpensive class of munition, employed principally in rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and in a range of civil applications such as perforating rock formations in mining, oil-well perforation, and other geotechnical operations. The armor-piercing capability of an RPG derives from the explosively driven formation of an elongated metallic jet that attains hypervelocity. The hydrodynamic penetration mechanism of this elongated, semi-solid metallic jet is highly complex and remains incompletely understood: both the advancing jet and the target — rolled homogeneous armor (RHA) steel — respond hydrodynamically, that is, as though they were incompressible fluids, even though both remain nominally solid throughout the event. The present study seeks to defeat penetration by the elongated jet of an RPG warhead by means of an add-on layered composite armor system that consists of layers of boron carbide along with alümina spherical balls and highly lubricating very fine silicate powders. A series of controlled detonation and terminal-ballistic experiments was performed on explosive munitions in order to elucidate the microstructural evolution and properties of the copper jet. The water-jet-like metallic streams were successfully deflected, arrested, captured, and contained within the interior layers of a highly effective add-on composite armor configuration. The findings demonstrate that the lethality of this weapon can be substantially reduced by redirecting and bending its linear elongation and its penetration path.