Experiments in Support of Pressure Enhanced Penetration with Shaped Charge Perforators.

Computational analysis demonstrated that the penetration of a shaped charge could be substantially enhanced by imploding the liner in a high pressure light gas atmosphere. The gas pressure helps confine the jet on the axis of penetration in the latter stages of formation. A light gas, such as helium or hydrogen, is required in order to keep the gas density low enough so as not to inhibit liner collapse. These results have now been confirmed by experiment. Identical 5-foot long guns, each containing 37 perforators at a shot density of 12 SPF, were inserted in two API Section 1 concrete targets, poured on the same day and cured for the same period. One of the guns was fired with interior ambient (0.1 MPa) air pressure and the other with helium at 13.8 MPa (2,000 psia). The average penetration from the 37 perforations with the helium system increased 40.3% over that obtained with the conventional system.