3D Printed Conical Shaped Charge Performance

Abstract

A Conical Shaped Charge (CSC) is a versatile device utilized in construction, mining, petroleum and defense industries. The geometry and material structure of the metal liner play an integral role in the CSC performance. The performance of CSC liners has been relatively well-characterized for liners manufactured via hydroforming, hydraulic pressing, or turning on a CNC lathe. With advancements in Additive Manufacturing (AM) CSC liners can be 3D printed with metal powders. AM can provide significant design freedom in terms of realizing better properties through introduced hierarchic structuring or anisotropy. However, it is unclear as to how metal liners produced with Selective Laser Melting (SLM), will influence the conical shaped charge’s performance. This paper explores the performance, relative to the penetration of steel plates, of CSCs using 3D printed metal liners benchmarked against machined liners. The metal liners were printed with SLM parameters that were optimized to maximize the print density. The metal liner dimensions (thickness, height, and outer diameter) were designed using the recommended ratios of the liner’s inner diameter presented by Virgil (1988). The 3D printed metal liners are compared to a CNC machined liner, with the same dimensions. The comparison enables the evaluation of how 3D printing a liner influences penetration performance. The results indicate conical shaped charges could utilize 3D printed liners. These results open a wide range of performance design opportunities that cannot be achieved via conventional manufacturing and justify the current increased cost associated with additive manufacturing metal components. Future work will continue to explore how print density, printed material, and advanced geometries modify the conical shaped charge performance.