materials for rail gun projectiles,

[gewing]

due to a discussion of the demonstrated 8mj railgun the Navy has demonstrated, and their desire for a 64mj one...

 

I was thinking yesterday about payloads for rail gun shells, and to a lesser degree for conventional shells.

I saw a reference sometime last year to "novel Explosives" for it that are not explosive under normal circumstances, but are explosive under the extreme impact velocities of a rail gun, and was trying to think what those might be.

There is the "PELE" technology that replaces the normal explosive fill with basically a form of plastic that creates an "enhances lateral effect" on impact.

I was thinking that a shell loaded with powdered titanium would be interesting. At the impact velocities of a rail gun, it should be instantly heated to over 2500 degrees, where titanium is Pyrophoric. If it was packed in there on its own, it should create something like a thermobaric effect as the superheated powder mingles with the atmosphere.

If it were packed in with something that would act as an oxidizer, it should make a fair HEI load.

It is possible that the powder could be packed in tight enough to give fair compression strength, so fair penetration.

Otherwise, something like AHEAD and its stacked cylinders or else a stack of thin titanium disks might work. ON a direct impact, they would resist compression and penetrate, but on a glancing hit they might tend to scatter, again in a superheated mode.

It has probably been tested already, so I guess I should not apply for a patent.

 

Another thought was about shaped charge warheads. THis might well be the opposite of what is actually desired, but I was wondering if powdered metal were incorporated in the lining, what might be the effect? perhaps sandwiched inside two layers of metal with their edges clad or welded?