Enhanced hypervelocity launcher - capabilities to 16 km/s

✍ Scribed by L.C. Chhabildas; L.N. Kmetyk; W.D. Reinhart; C.A. Hall

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 923 KB
• Volume: 17
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0734-743X
• DOI: 10.1016/0734-743x(95)99845-i

✦ Synopsis

A systematic study is described which has led to the successful launch of thin flier plates to velocities of 16 km/s. The energy required to launch a flier plate to 16 km/s is approximately 10 to 15 times the energy required to melt and vaporize the plate. The energy must, therefore, be deposited in a well-controlled manner to prevent melt or vaporization. This is achieved by using a graded-density assembly to impact a stationary flier-plate. Upon impact, timedependent, structured, high pressure pulses are generated and used to propel the plate:~ to hypervelocities without melt or fracture. In previous studies, a gradeddensity impact of 7.3 km/s was used to launch a 0.5 mm thick plate to a velocity of over 12 km/s. If impact techniques alone were to be used to achieve flier-plate velocities approaching 16 km/s, this would require that the graded-density impact occur at -10 km/s. In this paper, we describe a new technique that has been implemented to enhance the performance of the Sandia hypervelocity launcher. This Lechnique of creating an impact-generated acceleration reservoir, has allowed the bLunch of 0.5 mm to 1.0 mm thick plates to record velocities up to 15.8 km/s. In these experiments, both titanium (Ti-6A1-4V) and aluminum (6061-T6) alloy were used for the flier-plate material. These are the highest metallic projectile plate velocities ever achieved for masses in the range of 0.1 g to 1 g.