Experimental and numerical investigation of zirconium jet performance with different liner shapes design

This paper studies the shaped charge jet performance in terms of different liner shapes including conical, bell, hemispherical and bi-conical liners. The critical angles and the relevant flow velocities for the zirconium liner material were calculated analytically and numerically using Autodyn hydro-code. The relationship between the critical collapse angle and the flow velocity was determined for the conditions of jet formation and coherency. Penetration tests according to the standard testing procedures of API-RP34 (Section-II) were performed to validate the numerical predictions of the jet performance of the studied liners. It was found that the four shaped charge liners all produced coherent jets with different performances. The penetration depth of the shaped charges with the bell and the bi-conical liner shapes increased by 10.3% and 22%, respectively, while the crater diameter of shaped charge with hemispherical liner increased by 85% representing the formation of an explosively-formed-projectile (EFP), when they are compared with the corresponding jet characteristics of a conical liner shaped charge.