| dc.description.abstract | As a part of FFI-project 798 “Anti-Armour Weapons beyond 2000” a study of active protection systems (APS) has been
performed. APS protects armoured objects from the full effect of anti-tank (AT) missiles, and possibly APFSDS and
other kinetic energy (KE) weapons. The three components that build up an APS system are: a sensor system, a main
computer, and a weapon system (effector). Today’s APS is designed to handle the AT-missile threat only. Defeating
APFSDS and KE-weapons in general remains a challenge. In this report our aim is to investigate the potential of flying
steel plates, serving as effector for an APS system, in protecting against such threats.
A literature survey has been conducted resulting in a collection of formulas describing penetration in homogenous
armour. Though “real life” targets are multi-layered, such formulas are valuable, since they can be used to study which
parameters to influence in order to get the largest possible reduction in penetration depth.
Several Autodyn simulations have been performed, in which a large steel block was the main target. Before hitting this
target, however, the KE-penetrator had to perforate a thin steel plate. In case 1 and 2 the KE-penetrator had either a
considerable angle of attack or yaw, whereas the steel plate was stationary. In case 3 the KE-penetrator had zero angle
of attack and no yaw and was hit by a fast-moving, tilted steel plate. Roughly speaking we found that the KEpenetrator’s
performance was not significantly reduced until the steel plate’s angle of attack exceeded 45º and plate
thickness well exceeded 10 mm. | en_GB |