Sabot Front Borerider Stiffness vs. Dispersion: Finding the Knee in the Curve

Abstract

In the design of armor piercing, fin-stabilized, discarding sabot projectiles, the radial stiffness of the sabot front borerider has a significant impact on the projectile's dispersion and is, therefore, an important design consideration. Whether designing a new projectile or trying to improve an existing design, projectile designers can achieve front borerider stiffness without understanding its affect on dispersion characteristics. There is a knee in the stiffness vs. dispersion curve at which a change in the sabot front borerider stiffness will have a significant impact on dispersion or no impact at all depending on whether the stiffness is increased or decreased. The subject of this paper is an analytical approach to quantitatively determine the knee in the curve. Results from using this approach on the M865 APFSDS projectile are also presented.

Effects of Projectile and Gun Parameters on the Dispersion

“…Gun-projectile interaction has been investigated through large amount of researches. Experimental setups, analytical and finite element models have been developed to simulate the gun-projectile interaction and to examine the sensitivity of parameters on the dispersion [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] .…”

“…The sabot front borerider stiffness values have been changed and its effect combined with the manufacturing tolerances on the dispersion of 120 mm APFSDS projectile has been examined analytically 12,13 . The simulations showed that projectile with softer sabot front borerider has more effect on the dispersion and the gap between the projectile and gun bore caused the projectile to tilt its principal axis off the bore centreline resulting in variations in muzzle exit conditions.…”

A Mathematical Method for Determining Optimal Quantity of Backfill Materials Used for Grounding Resistance Reduction

“…General system design analyses with "knee" concept were given in [22,23], and usage of "knee" concept in information technologies was explained in [24,25], in chemical engineering in [26], and in projectile design in [27]. The experimental setup and the results of measurements of the 2 identical square grounding loops buried in a 2-layer soil (the one backfilled with bentonite suspension and the other conventional), presented in [11], were analyzed using the proposed method.…”