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Engineering, Technology & Applied Science Research Vol. 6, No. 1, 2016, 913-916 913  
  

www.etasr.com Ahmed et al.: Penetration Evaluation of Explosively Formed Projectiles Through Air and Water… 
 

Penetration Evaluation of Explosively Formed 
Projectiles Through Air and Water Using Insensitive 

Munition: Simulative and Experimental Studies   
 

Mukhtar Ahmed  
School of Chemical and 
Materials Engineering 
National University of 

Science and Technology 
Islamabad, Pakistan 

mukhtar@scme.nust.edu.pk 

Abdul Qadeer Malik 
School of Chemical and 
Materials Engineering 
National University of 

Science and Technology 
Islamabad, Pakistan 

aqmalik46@yahoo.com 

Shakeel Abbas Rofi 
School of Chemical and 
Materials Engineering 
National University of 

Science and Technology 
Islamabad, Pakistan 

shakeelabbas@hotmail.com 

Zheng Xiang Huang  
School of Mechanical 

Engineering 
Nanjing University of 

Science and Technology 
Nanjing, China 

huangyue@njust.edu.cn 
  

 

Abstract—The process of formation, flying, penetration of 
explosively-formed projectiles (EFP) and the effect of water   on 
performance of the charge for underwater applications is 
simulated by Ansysis Autodyn 2D-Hydro code. The main 
objective of an explosively formed projectile designed for 
underwater applications is to disintegrate the target at longer 
standoff distances. In this paper we have simulated the 
explosively formed projectile from OFHC-Copper liner for 1200 
conical angle. The Affect of water on the penetration of EFP is 
determined by simulations from Ansysis Autodyn 2-D Hydrocode 
and by varying depth of water from 1CD-5CD.  The depth of 
penetration against steel target is measured experimentally. Flash 
X-Ray Radiography (FXR) is used to capture EFP jet formation 
and its penetration against target is measured by depth of 
penetration experiments. Simulation results are compared with 
experimental results. The difference in simulated and 
experimental results for depth of penetration is about 7 mm, 
which lies within favorable range of error. The jet formation 
captured from FXR  is quite clear and jet velocity determined 
from Flash X-ray radiography is the same as the ones obtained 
by using other high explosives. Therefore, it is indicated that 
Insensitive Munition (8701) can be utilized instead of Polymer 
Bonded Explosives (PBX) for air and underwater environments 
with great reliability and without any hazard. 

Keywords-Explosively Formed Projectiles; Liner; Jet 
formation; Jet Penetration; Depth of Penetration.  

I. INTRODUCTION  

Explosively Formed Projectiles have become the most 
lethal device to defeat armor, masonry and other underwater 
moving objects including ships and submarine vehicles. In 
order to accomplish the objective, the EFP must be 
aerodynamically stable, so as to hit the target with small 
velocity decay rate and with small angle. In the last few 
decades, efforts have been made to optimize the liner shape and 
initiation mechanism of EFP’s which affect the formation and 
penetration properties of EFP [1-3]. The formation of EFP is a 
complex process involving high pressure and high temperature. 

In this work EFP jet is formed in air. To examine the effect of 
water on the velocity and penetration of the EFP, water with 
varying depths is introduced after the jet has traversed into air 
for 3CD.   Experimental results for 120o angle are compared 
with simulated results. Flash X-Ray Radiography is used to 
capture the images of jet formation. The cross-sectional view of 
the charge without casing with conical angle 120o and 
geometry of the model used for simulation is shown in Figure 
1. 

 

 

Fig. 1.  Cross-sectional view of the standard Shaped 

II.  DIMENSIONS AND MATERIAL MODEL 

The shapes of the liner and charge are shown in Figure 1. 
The shape of the liner is conical. The diameter of the liner is 54 
mm. Charge diameter is kept 60 mm for convenience. The 
length of charge is 84 mm for numerical simulations. The 
explosive, air, water and liner are meshed with 0.2 mm along x-
axis.  Along y-axis for 0-20 mm the mesh size is 0.2 and for 
20-40 mm the mesh size is 0.4. The Euler solver is used to 
model the explosive liner and air. The target is modeled using 
Lagrange solver. To avoid the interaction problem with Euler 
and Lagrange solver, Euler/Lagrange coupling method is used. 
Point detonation method is chosen for initiation of the charge. 
The materials models of air, charge, liner and target are 
described in Table I. The material parameters of 8701 
explosive, OFHC- copper liner and target, steel-45 are listed in 
Tables II, III and IV respectively. 

Liner  

Explosive 



Engineering, Technology & Applied Science Research Vol. 6, No. 1, 2016, 913-916 914  
  

www.etasr.com Ahmed et al.: Penetration Evaluation of Explosively Formed Projectiles Through Air and Water… 
 

The JWL Equation of State is used to describe the 
detonation of EFP Charge, which in generalized form is given 
below: 

V

E
e

VR
Be

VR
AP VRVR




















  21

21

11  

TABLE I.  MATERIAL MODELS 

Part Name Material  Equation of State Strength Model 

Explosive 8701 JWL None 
Liner Cu-OFHC Gruneisen Steinburg Guinan 
Air Air Ideal Gas None 

Target Steel-45 Shock Johnson Cook 
Water Water Shock None 

TABLE II.  JWL PARAMETERS OF 8701 

ρ[g/cm3] 1.695  
D 8.425e+3 
A 8.544e+08 
B 2.049e+0724 

R1 4.6 
R2 1.35 
ω 0.25 
E 9.5e+06 

TABLE III.  SHOCK PARAMETERS FOR OFHC-COPPER (LINER) 

ρ[g/cm3] G C1[Km/sec] C2 S1 S2
8.93 2.02 3.94 0.0 1.489 0.0 

TABLE IV.  MATERIAL PARAMETERS FOR STEEL-45 (TARGET) 

ρ[g/cm3] G C1[Km/sec] C2 S1 S2 
7.83 2.17 4.56 0.0 1.33 0.0 

III. SIMULATION OF PENETRATION PERFORMANCE OF EFP 
(JET FORMATION AND PENETRATION) 

For penetration against rocks and other armor piercing 
applications the jet with larger diameter is essential to obtain 
the better penetration depth. Also the EFP jet must be stable 
and with minimum velocity gradients to avoid the jet break up 
while approaching the target surface [6]. The jet formation for 
liner angle 120 at time t= 0, 20, 40, 60 and 72 microseconds 
(μsec) is shown in Figure 2.  The target is made of steel -45 
with a width of 100 mm. The penetration picture for 
Explosively Formed Projectile for 1200 conical liner after 
250μsec traversing through 3CD air and 3CD water against 
steel target obtained from simulation code is shown in Figure 3. 

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS 

The kinetic energy behavior of the EFP jet emerged from 
conical liner angle 1200 is predicted. The jet formation is 
accomplished in air. The effect of water depth on kinetic 
energy of the jet during penetration through water for a 
standoff distance of 1-Charge diameter (1CD) to 5-charge 
diameter (5CD) and steel target is determined using 2D-
Hydrocode. By taking time along x-axis and kinetic energy 
along y-axis, it is observed from simulation that when water 
depth increases, the kinetic energy decay rate is slow. This is 
also clear from Figure 4. 

 
  

 

t= 0μsec t= 20μse t= 
40μsec 

t= 
60μsec 

t= 
72μsec 

Fig. 2.  Jet Formation at different time steps 

 

 
Fig. 3.  Numerical simulation of the jet penetration against steel target. 

 

 
Fig. 4.  Kinetic Energy behavior of the copper liner  during jet formation 

and Penetration 



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www.etasr.com Ahmed et al.: Penetration Evaluation of Explosively Formed Projectiles Through Air and Water… 
 

V. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP 

A. Flash X-Ray Radiography (FXR) Setup 

To radiograph the EFP jet formation, the FXR experiment 
method was used.  The EFP charge and other armor were 
hanged by a cotton rope. Passive detonation technology was 
utilized in the experiments to visualize the jet deformation 
accurately and to avoid the discrepancies attributable to 
detonator. The pictorial representation of the FXR setup is 
shown in Figure 5. Two 450 kV flash x-ray tubes were 
installed for registration of the jet after interaction. The 
protected cassette films were positioned to capture the 
fragments after interaction. The schematic of the FXR setup is 
shown in Figure 6. 

 
Fig. 5.  Image of the Experimental test Setup with vertically hanging 

shaped charges. 

 
Fig. 6.  Schematic of the test set up of 60 mm shaped charge in front of 

double flash X-Ray tube. 

B. Jet formation and jet velocity calculation through fxr. 

The jet tip and tail velocities are measured simultaneously 
measured using a multi Channel Flash X-ray system. The 
exposures obtained from X-ray at 30 µsec and 50 µsec after 
ignition are shown in Figure 7. The X-ray exposure 
Magnification is 2.0. The jet tip velocity obtained from X-ray 
exposure   is 4.614 km/sec. 

In the experiments, the distance from the first marked line 
on X photographic plate to the ground is  137mm and the 
distance from the second marked line on X photographic plate 
to the ground is 120mm. L1=142 mm,  L2=83 mm,  L3=149 
mm, L4=88 mm. 

1

1 2
A

L
k

L L



142

0.631
142 83

 
  

3

3 4

149
0.6287

149 88
B

L
k

L L
  

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 7.  (a) Jet Formation at 30 micro-Seconds (b)Jet Formation at 50 
micro-Seconds    

C. Depth of penetration setup 

The penetration performance of the Explosively Formed 
projectiles is determined by its penetration against target made 
of 45-steel. The charge is placed at a standoff distance of 3CD  
air  and  3CD water  from the target. The target is made of three 
cylindrical blocks having 100 mm height and 100 mm 
diameter. The experimental set up for the depth of penetration 
before experiment is shown in the Figure 8. 

4 221.15 0.6287 74.09 0.6311 92.28mms     

5
4

92.28
4614.0m/s

50 30

s
v

t


  
 

(a)

(b) 



Engineering, Technology & Applied Science Research Vol. 6, No. 1, 2016, 913-916 916  
  

www.etasr.com Ahmed et al.: Penetration Evaluation of Explosively Formed Projectiles Through Air and Water… 
 

 
Fig. 8.   (a) EFP change at rest  (b) steel Target with 3CD water (c) setup 

for DOP Experiment  

D. Depth of penetration (dop) results 

The penetration produced by the jet after initiation and 
interaction with the steel target is shown if Figure 9.  

 

  
Fig. 9.  EFP Jet Effect on the 45-steel Target 

VI. CONCLUSIONS 

Simulations were carried out to predict the effect of water 
on the kinetic energy and penetration of Explosively Formed 
projectiles in underwater environments. Jet velocity of the EFP 
has been calculated via the Flash x-Ray technique, a high speed 
diagnostic technique used to record micro-second phenomena. 
The penetration performance is determined through DOP 

experiments against steel targets. The depth of penetration 
measured from simulation and experiments are 79 mm and 72 
mm respectively which shows a variations of about 7 mm, 
which is an within  an acceptable range. From this comparison 
we can conclude that simulation and experimental are in 
reasonable agreement. This comparison also shows that from 
simulation we can predict the performance of EFPS against 
underwater targets very effectively.  The Insensitive Material 
(8701-Explosive) has been used first time as the energetic 
material for the underwater application. This material can be 
utilized well in naval and other underwater applications.  

ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

The authors are thankful to “Key Laboratory of 
Fundamental Sciences for National Defence", Nanjing 
University of Science and Technology Nanjing, Jiangso, China, 
for providing experimental facility. 

REFERENCES 
[1] T. H. Bouet, P. Tarayre, J. P.  Guillon, “Study of a multi-point ignition 

EFP”, 15th International Symposium on Ballistics, pp. 159-166, Israel, 
1995 

[2] D. Bender, B. Chhouk, R. Fong, B. Rice, E. Volkmann, “Explosively 
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Symposium on Ballistics, pp. 755-761, Switzerland,  2001 

[3]  C. Yu, Q. D. Dong, C. W. Sun, Y. J. Tong, C. L. Yan, F. B. Li, “The 
experimental studies of explosively formed projectile with star shaped 
tail”, Explosive Shock Waves, Vol. 23, No. 6, pp. 561-564, 2003 

[4] J. Carleone, D. Bender, “A unique method of providing an explosively 
formed projectile with fins”, 17th International Symposium on Ballistics, 
pp. 55–62, Midrand, South Africa, 1998 

[5] W. Jun, L. Jingbo, D. Yixin, “Experimental and numerical study on the 
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2007 

[6] C. Yu, T. Yanjin, Y. Chengli, F. Li, Y. Gui, Z. Ming, W. Bingren, X. 
Panhai, L. Li, “Applied research of shaped charge technology”, 
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988, 1999 

 

(a) (b) (c)