Ballistic Protection of Military Shelters from Mortar Fragmentation and Blast Effects using a Multi layer Structure

Abstract

In addition to its usage as a top attack ammunition in the battle field against troops, 120 mm mortar bomblet has been recently used in the terror attacks against military shelters and civil constructions. This research studies the protection of vehicle and personnel military shelters against mortar fragmentation warhead projectile and it's destroying effects. The mortar warhead threat combines both blast load and ballistic fragment penetration effects. Composite structure layers are proposed herein to be integrated with concertina walls to achieve full protection against the mortar projectile destroying effects. The current paper investigates the ability of the proposed layers to stop the mortar's fragments and to mitigate its blast load. The velocity and the mass distribution of the produced projectile fragments were estimated using Split-X software. Besides, the ability of the proposed protection layers to stop the fragments and mitigate the blast wave was evaluated using AUTODYN hydrocode. A static firing test was then performed to validate the theoretical results and verify the effectiveness of the proposed protection added layers. The current study showed that the proposed composite layers are sufficient to protect the military shelters from the mortar's destroying ballistic effects.

Experimental and numerical studies of fragmentation shells filled with advanced HMX-plastic explosive compared to various explosive charges

“…The dual effect of the mortar 120 mm high explosive (HE) round includes both the massive fragments distribution and the blast load evolved from the detonation of the main explosive charge in the bomblet containing about 2.25 kg TNT (Elshenawy et al 2019). When the volume of the expanded casing of the fragmented warhead exceeds 3.24 times that of the initial mortar volume, casing cracks begin to propagate causing the fracture of the fragmented body, which expands forming clouds of various sized fragments (Meyers 1994;Zecevic et al 2004).…”

“…The mortar bomblet in general can produce large number of random various sized fragments and masses based on initial warhead design and type of the used masses of explosives and casing materials (Elshenawy et al 2019). Catovic and Kljuno (2021) applied a new model to estimate the lethal area of artillery projectiles filled by HEs.…”

Numerical modelling study of a modified sandbag system for ballistic protection

“…These systems are very robust and have the capability to defend against a large array of direct and indirect threats such as fragments, bullets and shockwaves from blast [4]. Furthermore, the barriers still face the risk of being displaced when subjected to blast which in turn increases the risk of collateral damage to personnel [11]. In addition to this, there have been multiple studies done to show that geoparticles larger than sand are more effective at responding to a ballistic threat [12][13][14].…”

Experimental investigations of the response of a portable container to blast, fragmentation, and thermal effects of energetic materials detonation

“…Alogla et al (2020) studied metallic protective panels against nearby blast loading, however, the effects of fragmentation was not addressed. Elshenawy et al (2019). proposed a composite layer protection shelter against blast and fragments effects of a mortar warhead.…”