Enhanced Stability and Penetration Depth in Deep Earth Penetrators

Physical Sciences Inc (PSI) proposes to enhance the performance of deep earth penetrators using fluid additives (gas, liquid) to mitigate the deleterious effects of interactions with natural and manmade heterogeneous target materials. In order to minimize these shear effects from the heterogeneous target impacts, we propose to envelope the projectile with innovative surface layers that create either ablative fluid additives from the degradation of a multi-component composite materials or fluid layers from the controlled degradation of energetic materials. During the Phase I effort, PSI will develop a new model of projectile penetration that takes into account the shear-reducing benefits of these fluid layers and predict the overall improvement anticipated for these modified projectiles. A preliminary design of the additive layer and its attachment approach to existing inventory will be developed. A Phase II plan that emphasizes the experimental demonstration of the fluid layer shear control by flying subscale projectiles down a ballistic range at simulated target geometries that emulate heterogeneous material constructs will also be organized. The Phase II would emphasize designing, planning and conducting the ballistic range tests.