Prevention of sympathetic detonation between reactive armor sandwiches

Reactive armor boxes are a good protection of armored fighting vehicles against shaped charge and KE threats. Using different test set-ups for various materials their suitability for the prevention of sympathetic detonation between reactive armor boxes was tested. At one test set-up the whole space between two reactive armor sandwiches was filled with different foams having densities smaller than 400 kg/m3. By means of flash x-ray photography it could be seen whether or not the detonation of one sandwich - the donor sandwich - led to a detonation, deflagration or no reaction of the second sandwich - the acceptor sandwich. At another test set-up the acceptor sandwich was covered with layers of materials having densities greater than 1100 kg/m3. With respect to the capability of avoiding sympathetic detonation the paper treats necessary material densities, the influence of material arrangement and the observation that there are remarkable differences between the investiga ted conditions.