Study on energy release characteristics of reactive material casings under explosive loading

Reactive Materials (RMs), a new material with structural and energy release characteristics under shock-induced chemical reactions, are promising in extensive applications in national defense and military fields. They can increase the lethality of warheads due to their dual functionality. This paper focuses on the energy release characteristics of RM casings prepared by alloy melting and casting process under explosive loading. Explosion experiments of RM and conventional 2A12 aluminum alloy casings were conducted in free field to capture the explosive fireballs, temperature distribution, peak overpressure of the air shock wave and the fracture morphology of fragments of reactive material (RM) warhead casings by using high-speed camera, infrared thermal imager temperature and peak overpressure testing and scanning electron microscope. Results showed that an increase of both the fireball temperature and air shock wave were observed in all RM casings compared to conventional 2A12 aluminum ally casings. The RM casings can improve the peak overpressure of the air shock wave under explosion loading, though the results are different with different charge ratios. According to the energy release characteristics of the RM, increasing the thickness of RM casings will increase the peak overpressure of the near-field air shock wave, while reducing the thickness will increase the peak overpressure of the far-field air shock wave.     

导弹子母弹战斗部对复杂目标毁伤的计算机仿真

介绍了蒙特卡洛方法(Monte-Carlo)仿真的基本原理,并运用该方法对导弹子母弹战斗部对复杂目标毁伤进行研究,利用Matlab语言编制仿真程序实现了计算机仿真.有效地解决了其他方法计算繁琐的弊端,大大提高了毁伤仿真的计算效率.仿真结果表明应用该方法建模技术简洁,模型的通用性好,并能够随时根据需求进行功能扩展.     

Quantification of projection angle in fragment generator warhead

Tactical Ballistic Missile (TBM) class target neutralization by the fragment spray of a Fragment Generator Warhead (FGW) calls for quantification of fragment projection angle scatter to finalize the end game engagement logic. For conventional axi-symmetric warhead, dispersion is assumed to be normal with a standard deviation of 3⁰. However, such information is not available in case of FGW. Hence, a set of experiments are conducted to determine the dispersion of fragments. The experiments are conducted with a specific configuration of FGW in an identical arena to quantify the scatter and then verified its applicability to other configurations having a range of L/D and C/M ratios, and contoured fragmenting discs. From the experimental study, it is concluded that the scatter in projection angle follows normal distribution with a standard deviation of 0.75° at Chi-square significance level of 0.01(χ²_0.99).     

Numerical simulation of the natural fragmentation of explosively loaded thick walled cylinders

The ability to predict the natural fragmentation of an explosively loaded metal casing would represent a significant achievement. Physically-based material models permit the use of small scale laboratory tests to characterise and validate their parameters. The model can then be directly employed to understand and design the system of interest and identify the experiments required for validation of the predictions across a wide area of the performance space. This is fundamentally different to the use of phenomenologically based material algorithms which require a much wider range of characterisation and validation tests to be able to predict a reduced area of the performance space. Eulerians numerical simulation methods are used to describe the fragmentation of thick walled EN24 steel cylinders filled with PBXN-109 explosive. The methodology to characterise the constitutive response of the material using the physically based Armstrong–Zerilli constitutive model and the Goldthorpe path dependent fracture model is described, and the results are presented. The ability of an Eulerian hydrocode to describe the fragmentation process and reproduce the experimentally observed fragment mass and velocity distributions is presented and discussed. Finally the suitability of the current experimental analysis methodology for simulation validation is addressed.     

Fracture mechanism of a cylindrical shell cut by circumferential detonation collision

The failure mechanism of a cylindrical shell cut into fragments by circumferential detonation collision was experimentally and numerically investigated. A self-designed detonation wave regulator was used to control the detonation and cut the shell. It was found that the self-designed regulator controlled the fragment shape. The macrostructure and micro-characteristics of fragments revealed that shear fracture was a prior mechanism, the shell fractured not only at the position of detonation collision, but the crack also penetrated the shell at the first contact position of the Chapmen-Jouguet (C-J) wave. The effects of groove number and outer layer thickness on the fracture behavior were tested by simulations. When the thickness of the outer layer was 5–18 mm, it has little effect on fragmentation of the shell, and shells all fractured at similar positions. The increase of the groove number reduced the fracture possibility of the first contact position of the C-J wave. When the groove number reached 7 with a 10 mm outer layer (1/4 model), the fracture only occurred at the position of detonation collision and the fragment width rebounded.     

Experimental and numerical study of the fragmentation of expanding warhead casings by using different numerical codes and solution techniques

There has been increasing interest in numerical simulations of fragmentation of expanding warheads in 3D. Accordingly there is a pressure on developers of leading commercial codes, such as LS-DYNA, AUTODYN and IMPETUS Afea, to implement the reliable fracture models and the efficient solution techniques. The applicability of the Johnson–Cook strength and fracture model is evaluated by comparing the fracture behaviour of an expanding steel casing of a warhead with experiments. The numerical codes and different numerical solution techniques, such as Eulerian, Lagrangian, Smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH), and the corpuscular models recently implemented in IMPETUS Afea are compared. For the same solution techniques and material models we find that the codes give similar results. The SPH technique and the corpuscular technique are superior to the Eulerian technique and the Lagrangian technique (with erosion) when it is applied to materials that have fluid like behaviour such as the explosive and the tracer. The Eulerian technique gives much larger calculation time and both the Lagrangian and Eulerian techniques seem to give less agreement with our measurements. To more correctly simulate the fracture behaviours of the expanding steel casing, we applied that ductility decreases with strain rate. The phenomena may be explained by the realization of adiabatic shear bands. An implemented node splitting algorithm in IMPETUS Afea seems very promising.     

Between the Cracks: Actor Fragmentation and Local Conflict Systems in the Libyan Civil War

Abstract

After nearly four years of civil war, Libya continues to be described as an ‘ungoverned space’ where the collapse of state institutions reignited tribal, political, religious and ideological tensions. These accounts, however, obscure Libya’s complex subnational governance, and the role of non-state armed groups in shaping the emerging political orders. By contrast, we contend that distinct subnational political orders have emerged in Libya since 2014 in which actors engage in state-making practices driven by local interests. Using empirical evidence to explore the activity of non-state armed groups during the Libyan civil conflict, we highlight that the local conflict environments in eastern, western and southern Libya provide specific incentives that shape the process of armed group splintering and patterns of violence. The findings demonstrate that claims to authority and notions of statehood extend far beyond the state whereby governance relations are negotiated between state and non-state actors. Conflict patterns, (in)stability and the prevailing political order are therefore conditional on the nature of the dominant actor, their strategies and modes of violence within their areas of influence. Through this analysis, the paper provides a more granular understanding of the local political dynamics that drive violence in Libya and civil wars more generally.