Fast Moving Tungsten Rods Encountering Blast Waves

Results are presented concerning the fragmentation of fast moving tungsten rods under blast loading. The rods were the penetrator part of 30 mm caliber APFSDS rounds. The blast was produced by the detonation of a static spherical explosive charge ranging from 50 g to 500 g TNT. Trajec- tory, yaw angle, velocity and damage of the rods were determined with usual instrumentation for dynamic tests (cardboards, radar, X-ray flash photography and high-speed images). The observed effects depends on the mass of explosive, the lateral distance from charge to trajectory and the location of the first impact of the blast along the projectile. The analysis of the experimental data shows that damage threshold is given by a scaled lateral distance. These results give some insight in the vulnerability of APFSDS.