Simulation on damage effectiveness of hexagonal prism aimable warhead with multi-point synchronous initiations

In order to study the impacts of warhead geometry and initiation pattern on the lethality of aimable warhead, multi-point synchronous initiated hexagonal prism and cylindrical warheads were compared through numerical simulation, combined with theoretical formulas of fragment deceleration and target plugging. Enhancements of fragment velocity, kinetic energy and density toward the target and target destructions were analyzed. The results show that hexagonal prism warhead can produce dense fragment beams and enhance average velocity and kinetic energy with asymmetric eight-point initiation by 24.13% and 54.52% respectively, which are higher than those of the isometric or same weight cylindrical warhead. The effective fragments are still relatively concentrated in an area of 8 m×2 m for the hexagonal prism warhead when the distance between warhead and target is 40 m.