Analysis of EFP and single sandwich ERA interaction

Explosively Formed Projectiles (EFPs) are used to attack armored vehicles, on the other hands the armored vehicles use Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA) to enhance their protection. Using LS-DYNA software, this paper studies the problem of interaction of EFP with single sandwich ERA. The effect of various ERA configurations like the thickness of metal flyer plates/explosive and the inclination angle of ERA is analyzed against an EFP. The study concludes that the effect of light ERA i.e. with flyers upto 5mm is limited and the residual EFP still has enough energy to penetrate significant thickness of steel target, however when the ERA configuration is changed to heavier steel plates, most of the EFP is consumed during interaction with the ERA and only a small portion reaches the steel target, which does not have sufficient energy to penetrate the target. The simulation results were validated by testing the EFP against ERA.