Shaped charge simulation using SPH in cylindrical coordinates

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the applicability of the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method in the jet formation process of a cylindrical-shaped charge (CSC). Different SPH formulations, suggested in other works, to other applications, are brought together in order to build a model that represents the phenomenon of detonation of a CSC in a more realistic way. Design/methodology/approach – A two-dimensional (2D) SPH formulation using cylindrical coordinates is adopted to simulate CSCs. The problem of fluid-solid interaction between the detonation wave of the explosive and the metal liner, numerically unstable due to the great difference in density between the phases, is resolved adopting the multi-phase strategy. A new proposition of artificial viscosity is incorporated in order to account the convergence effect of the liner particles toward the axis of symmetry of the charge. Two numerical examples are used to validate the formulation. In the first, the velocity and length ...