Full Paper

Edge Effects on ERA Sandwiches

Manfred Held*
TDW, D-86523 Schrobenhausen (Germany)
DOI: 10.1002/prep.200600015
Abstract
The momentum transfer of thick flying plates of an ERA
sandwich and iterative disturbances of shaped charge jets by thin
flying plates are shortly described.
Hits on the sandwich plates, out of the centre, in the horizontal
direction are not reducing the effectiveness, as long as the high
explosive charge is promptly initiated. In vertical directions the
author has found out that in case of hits on top or the bottom,
where only the front respectively the rear plates are interacting
with the jets, the reduction effects in penetrations remain also
more or less constant.
Changing the azimuth angle up to 308 the residual penetrations
are also not increased or decreased.
Keywords: Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA), Shaped Charge
Protection, Edge Effects, Side Hits, Jet Disturbances
1 Introduction
Explosive reactive armors (ERA) generally consist of
symmetric or asymmetric sandwiches of metal plates withan
internal high explosive layer ([1] and [2]). By the impact of a
shaped charge jet the high explosive charge detonates more
or less promptly [3] and drives both attached metal plates in
opposite directions with well predictable velocities [4]. If the
sandwich is arranged under an angle to the shaped charge
axis and the plates are relatively thick, then the jet is mainly
disturbed by the transfer of momenta along the passing jet
[5]. If the plates are thin, thenthe impact of the jet tipcreates
a hole, which is larger than the jet diameter. The edge of the
hole is touching the following jet segment after a short time
by the oblique movement of the inclined plate. By such
iterative contacts radial bubbles are created in the jet, which
are observable on flash X-ray pictures (Fig. 1).
This iteratively ongoing process is describedagaininmore
details. The touch of the jet at the hole edge of a thin flying
plate opens this hole a little more, therefore the following jet
section can now pass the hole less or fully undisturbed, until
to the point, where the end of the slit in the oblique flying
plate will touch again the jet, creating the next bubble in the
following jet segment. The sequence of undisturbed jet
segments anditerative radial eruptedsegments is very nicely
visible on the flash X-ray picture of Figure 1, where a jet of
9 km/s velocity has hit a symmetric ERA sandwich 3/3/3
with a 3 mm mild steel plate, 3 mm high explosive layer and
again a 3 mm mild steel plate under 608 NATO-angle. The
upper picture was made after 80 ms, just a short time after the
detonation of the high explosive charge layer. The sandwich
plates are flying in opposite directions with about 800 m/s
velocity. After further 86 ms time difference, in total 166 ms
delay time, the second lower FXR picture was gained. The
jet is remarkably stronger disturbed compared to the first
flash X-ray picture.
The plate flying against the jet should generate bubbles in
the upper direction. Such bubbles are only a little observed.
After the pass of both plates only downwards bubbles are
visible, caused by the rear plate, which is flying with the jet.
This does not mean that no bubbles are created from the
front plate. The main reason is, that they are filtered out by
the rear plate, flying with the jet. This is really a little bit
worse. Because bubbles flying in the upper direction are
consuming some material of the rear plate and are reducing
their interaction potential with the jet. It is surprising that
people are working for a long time now with ERA
sandwiches, but these complicated interactions of 2 thin
plates with shaped charge jets have not really taken into
account all these details, at least in the open literature.
Naturally the rear plate, flying with the jet, is longer time
interfering with the jet sections. Therefore the jet is more
disturbed than by the front plate, which has shorter
interaction times by the higher relative velocities and is
therefore something less disturbing the jet.
The residual jet is partially lifted on the second FXR
picture in the lower velocity range by the transferred
momentum [6].
2 Horizontal Edge Effects
The question arises, what is the residual penetration of a
sandwich arrangement, if the jet hits the plate just at one of
the edges.
* E-mail: manfred.held@tdw.lfk.eads.net
98 Propellants, Explosives, Pyrotechnics 31, No. 2 (2006)
2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH&Co. KGaA, Weinheim
The jet has hit a symmetric sandwich of 4 mm mild steel,
2 mm layer of high explosive and again 4 mm mild steel
under 608 NATO-angle at different distances from the side.
The used 96 mm shaped charge with wave shaper had
around 9 km/s jet tip velocity. It was fired at two caliber
standoff against a 10 mm RHA plate under 608 NATO-
angle and in further 100 mm perpendicular or 200 mm line
off sight distance against the ERA sandwich. The mild steel
witness blocks were arrangedat additional 500 mmdistance.
The large distance was selected by a number of different
tests to get FXR pictures of the disturbed jets behind the
ERA sandwiches. Therefore the mild steel blocks were
arranged in 1050 mm standoff from the charge to get the
residual penetrations (Fig. 2).
The firings were done between 50 mm, 30 mm, 20 mm,
10 mm, 5 mm and 0 mm distance from the side edge, but in
the middle of the plates in the vertical direction. At 0 mm
distance fromthe edge a residual penetrationof 575 mmwas
achieved, which is very near to the normal penetration of
this charge at this standoff. In this case the reactive armor
was probably not initiatedby the jet tip, if at all, thentoolate.
But at 5 mm beginning from the side edge the penetrations
are in the range between 120 mm and 245 mm with no trend
in any direction (Fig. 2). These individual firings are single
values with the normal scatter of such tests. But these firings
demonstrate, if the high explosive charges in the sandwich
are detonating, the disturbances of the shaped charge jet are
equal at different hit positions in the horizontal plane.
3 Vertical Edge Effects
With hits on the top or the right side of the sandwich after
Figure 3, only the plate flying against the jet is interacting
with the elongating jet. By hits on the bottom only the plate
flying with the jet is interacting. The magnitude of reduction
is maybe a little different, but there were not found any
noticeable or remarkable vertical edge effects, if the semi-
infinite target has at least 5 caliber distance from the
sandwich.
An interesting paper was recently published by Ismail [7]
to this topic. He has experimentally found a little bit
different results. With a small shaped charge he has got 69%
reduction of the residual penetration at a hit on the top, 85%
Figure 1. Flash X-ray picture of a copper shaped charge jet with 9,08 km/s tip velocity of a 96 mm diameter shaped charge, disturbed by
the interaction with two 3 mm thick mild steel plates, flying with about 0,8 km/s velocity in opposite directions under 608 NATO angle,
photographed at 80 ms and 166 ms delay times to the warhead detonation.
Figure 2. Shaped charge test number, plate thicknesses of 10 mm armor steel spaced plate and 4/2/4 ERA sandwich on the top line and
beneath, all the distances up to the mild steel blocks with the achieved residual penetrations in 11 caliber standoff (shaped charge
diameter 96 mm).
Edge Effects on ERA Sandwiches 99
2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH&Co. KGaA, Weinheim www.pep.wiley-vch.de Prop., Explos., Pyrotech. 31, No. 2, 98 101
in the middle of the sandwich and 86% on the bottom after
Fig. 3. But he explained this already, that at top a smaller
distance exists fromthe 608 inclined sandwich, probably 3/3/
3 to the vertical arranged witness block, compared to the
bottom, where the distance is remarkably increased. These
different air gap distances from the ERA sandwich to the
witness block have caused the smaller reduction value at the
hits on the top.
4 Angle effect
Innormal tests the shapedcharges are firedperpendicular
to the plane of the sandwich. In practice the shaped charges
can also attack reactive armor under some additional
azimuth angles. Therefore also few fundamental tests are
done with changing azimuth angle with a 608 NATO-angle
oriented sandwich under the same test configurations as
before. The definitions are shown in Fig. 4. The residual
penetration results of 08, 108, 208 and 308 azimuth angles are
presented in Fig. 5, where all the values are similar and no
trend is recognizable.
5 Summary
The results show, that hits away from the centre in
horizontal directions are not influencing the protectionlevel
of an explosive reactive armor sandwich, as long as the high
explosive charge is promptly initiated.
In addition it is surprising, that hits on the edges in the
vertical direction are also not remarkably changing the
Figure 3. Hits on an inclined ERA sandwich at top or at the bottom with different arrangements of the witness blocks
Figure 4. To the 608 elevation angle e was added an additional azimuth angle a.
100 M. Held
Prop., Explos., Pyrotech. 31, No. 2, 98 101 www.pep.wiley-vch.de 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH&Co. KGaA, Weinheim
stopping power, even for hits in the down position of
Figure 2 the jet is only interacting with the front plate or for
hits on the upper edge only with the rear plate.
For research tests the witness plate should be inclined
under the same angle as the ERA sandwich, to get also over
their length constant distances between the disturbance
mechanism and the witness blocks. This can be in practice
sometimes different.
This constant defeating behavior against shaped charge
jets can be explained in the way that an already strongly
disturbed jet cannot be effectively reduced a second time in
his performance.
6 References
[1] M. Held, Schutzeinrichtung gegen Geschosse, DE 2008156,
1970, Messerschmitt-Blkow-Blohm GmbH, Mnchen, Ger-
many; Dispositif de Protection Contre Projectiles ou Corps
Analogues FR 2436361 1974, Messerschmitt-Blkow-Blohm
GmbH, Mnchen; Germany, Structure for Protection against
Projectile, GB 1581125, 1974, Messerschmitt-Blkow-Blohm
GmbH, Mnchen; Germany; Protective arrangement against
projectiles, particularly hollow explosive charge projectiles, US
4368660, 1983, Messerschmitt-Blkow-Blohm GmbH, Mn-
chen; Germany.
[2] M. Held, Overview on Reactive Armour, European Armoured
Fighting Vehicle Symposium, May 28 30, 1996, Shrivenham,
UK.
[3] M. Held, Initiation Phenomena with Shaped Charge Jets, 9th
Symposium (International) on Detonation, Portland, OR,
August 28 September 1, 1989, p. 1416 and p. 1432.
[4] M. Held, Plate Velocities for Asymmetric Sandwiches, Pro-
pellants, Explos., Pyrotech. 1997, 22, 218.
[5] M. Held, Momentum Theory of Explosive Reactive Armors,
Propellants, Explos., Pyrotech. 2001 26, 91.
[6] M. Held, Anti ERA Shaped Charge Warhead System, 18th
International Symposium on Ballistics, San Antonio, USA, 484,
1999
[7] M. M. Ismail et al., Optimization of Performance of Explosive
Reactive Armours, 21st International Symposium on Ballistics,
Adelaide, Australia, Vol. 1, 227, 2004.
(Received July 21, 2005; Ms 2005/040)
Figure 5. The residual penetration is not changing with the small variations of the azimuth angles from 08 to 308.
Edge Effects on ERA Sandwiches 101
2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH&Co. KGaA, Weinheim www.pep.wiley-vch.de Prop., Explos., Pyrotech. 31, No. 2, 98 101