Sabot Discard: Effect of Scoop Shape

Abstract

Separation of sabot petals is a critical procedure in intermediate ballistics affecting accuracy of the final hit of the penetrator of the fired ammunition round. Design of sabot petals has been an important concern supported by modeling and simulation studies of sabot separation. Computational fluid dynamics studies of the same have hitherto addressed feasibility of coupled fluid dynamics and 6 DOF simulations employing fixed sabot designs. The use of dynamical meshes for supersonic air flow is in its infancy as each simulation run for a given sabot geometry is highly computationally intensive. Good support can still be offered to sabot petal design by using analytical models, like the one by Reinecke and Guillot and its subsequent improvements. We present and study an improved model which better captures the role of the sabot petal scoop. In particular, we study how changes in the shape of the scoop affects the sabot separation kinematics. The sabot assembly assumed to be axisymmetric in shape and other major design parameters are kept the same when the scoop shape is changed.