Structural simulation and WAAM fabrication process exploration of damage-enhanced steel-zirconium laminated composite energetic penetrator

To improve the aftereffect damage power of semi-armor-piercing-warhead (SAPW), this paper proposed a steel-zirconium laminated composite energetic penetrator. The penetration ability of laminated composite penetrators with different structure parameters was verified based on Ls-Dyna R11 finite element software, and steel-zirconium laminated composite material was prepared by wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM). According to the finite element simulation results, the penetration ability of laminated composite penetrators was comparable to that of conventional homogeneous penetrators. Furthermore, during the penetration process, the steel casing acted as the momentous load-bearing component and collapsed after reaching the plastic deformation limit. Subsequently, the internal active zirconium shell was exposed to air and induced an energy release reaction, which fully demonstrated the structural advantages of laminated composite energetic penetrators. The microstructure analysis results show that the density of steel-zirconium laminated composite material prepared by WAAM exceeded 98 %, and there was a clear transition layer between steel and zirconium, indicating that the bonding strength between different deposition layers may be high. In addition, the steel deposition layer retained original structure, which means that the steel shell still had its original strength and ductile properties. The zirconium deposition layer was a two-phase mixture of Zr-riched phase and Fe-riched intermetallic compound. The presence of intermetallic compound further increased the brittleness of Zr shell, which helps to improve the energy release characteristics of laminated composite penetrators.