Shaped charge penetration into high- and ultrahigh-strength Steel–Fiber reactive powder concrete targets

Abstract

Abstract Experiments on shaped charge penetration into high and ultrahigh strength steel-fiber reactive powder concrete (RPC) targets were performed in this paper. Results show that the variation of penetration depth and crater diameter with concrete strength is different from that of shaped charge penetration into normal strength concrete (NSC). The crater diameter of RPC is smaller than that of NSC penetrated by the shaped charge. The jet particles are strongly disturbed and hardly reach the crater bottom because they pass through the narrow channel formed by jet penetration into the RPC. The effects of radial drift velocity and gap effects of jet particles for a shaped charge penetration into RPC target are discussed. Moreover, a theoretical model is presented to describe the penetration of shaped charge into RPC target. As the concrete strength increases, the penetration resistance increases and the entrance crater diameter decreases. Given the drift velocity and narrow crater channel, the low-velocity jet particles can hardly reach the crater bottom to increase the penetration depth. Moreover, the narrow channel has a stronger interference to the jet particles with increasing concrete strength; hence, the gap effects must be considered. The drift velocity and gap effects, which are the same as penetration resistance, also have significant effects during the process of shaped charge penetration into ultrahigh-strength concrete. The crater profiles are calculated through a theoretical model, and the results are in good agreement with the experiments.