Meshfree particle simulation of the detonation process for high explosives in shaped charge unlined cavity configurations

Abstract.

The numerical simulation of the detonation of a high explosive (HE) is generally not an easy task for traditional grid based methods. Smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method, as a meshfree, Lagrangian and particle method, provides a very attractive approach in dealing with large deformations and large inhomogeneities in the extremely transient high explosive detonation and later expansion process. This paper presents the application of SPH to simulate and analyze the detonation process of high explosive in shaped charge. A three-dimensional SPH code is developed and applied to simulate the shaped charge detonation process in different scenarios. It is observed that for high explosive in a shaped charge, the detonation produced gaseous products experience strong convergence that forms an extremely high-pressure gas jet. Factors such as different charge cavity shapes and different detonation models lead to quite different behavior of the gas jet convergence and later divergence. Further analyses reveal that a critical value for the charge head length exists. Beyond this critical value, increasing the charge head length will not result in improvement on the gas jet convergence performance.