Discussion of the Experimental Findings from the initiation of covered, but unconfined high explosive charges with shaped charge jets

Abstract

Abstract The results of experiments on the initiation of covered, but unconfined high explosive charges with shaped charge jets from Chick and Hatt, which have been diagnosed by the flash X‐ray technique, as well as the author's own experiments in which the build‐up distances and the run‐up times have been recorded by means of a rotating‐mirror camera in the framing and streak modes, are analyzed and explained in detail in this paper. Build‐up distances and run‐up times versus the residual jet velocity, or versus the dynamic pressure, are in fairly good agreement, despite the somewhat different shaped charges and acceptor charges that have been used in the two approaches. The greater initiability of an acceptor charge behind a barrier, but with an air gap between, is attributed less to a precursor shock that desensitizes the high explosive charge which is in contact with a barrier, but rather to the higher velocity of the free shaped charge jet and, particularly, to the area loading on a high explosive charge with an air gap in front.