Experimental Investigation of the Effects of Explosive Length and Standoff Distance on Shaped Charges

Authors: Mehmet AKÇAY, Faruk ELALDI

Abstract: Shaped-charge technology has a wide variety of applications in civil and military tields. Most armor-piercing projectiles and rockets are equipped with shaped-charge warheads. The effects of the length of the explosive and changes in standoff distance on armor penetration were investigated experimentally and theoretically. The results show that increasing the length of the charge to greater than L/D=1.6 has no effect. There is an optimum standoff distance of 145 mm, which produces the maximum armor penetration for this shaped charge. The theoretical results correspond well with the experiments.

Keywords: Shaped charge, standoff distance, explosive length