Modification of Jet Velocities in an Explosively Loaded Copper Target with a Conical Defect

In this work, the design and execution of an experiment with the goal of demonstrating control over the evolution of a copper jet is described. Simulations show that when using simple multi-material buffers placed between a copper target with a conical defect and a cylinder of high-explosive, a variety of jetting behaviors occur based on material placement, including both jet velocity augmentation and mitigation. A parameter sweep was performed to determine optimal buffer designs in two configurations. Experiments using the optimal buffer designs verified the effectiveness of the buffer and validated the modeling.