Disarming unexploded ordnance with a 3D-printed nylon-water composite jet
DOI: 10.1063/10.0044134
Disarming unexploded ordnance with a 3D-printed nylon-water composite jet lead image
Not all bombs explode upon impact. Unexploded ordnance poses a significant risk, potentially detonating at any moment. When found, these weapons need to be destroyed with great care to avoid incidental damage and casualties. Du et al. designed a shaped charge liner to dispose of these explosives more safely.
“With the frequent occurrence of local conflicts recently, hidden dangers of unexploded ordnance are widely distributed across the globe, affecting dozens of countries on all continents, which makes the clearance and disposal of unexploded ordnance and explosives particularly crucial,” said author Tianchen Yu.
Though water jets can destroy explosives with limited collateral damage, they are unstable and disperse rapidly. The researchers showed that using nylon as a structural skeleton for the water jet helps maintain its coherence and focus.
“Nylon-water composite jets address this issue by using nylon as a skeleton, enabling water to remain focused during formation and penetration processes,” Yu said.
The researchers created such a jet by injecting water into a hollow, bell-shaped nylon liner under an explosive driving force. When the nylon-water composite jet penetrates an explosive target, the nylon shell opens the target’s casing, allowing the water jet to penetrate the explosive and reduce its effectiveness without causing it to detonate. By adjusting the thickness of the jet, the researchers can control its penetration depth.
“This tunable performance is precisely what’s needed for explosive ordnance disposal,” Yu said.
They plan to better understand how the liner’s parameters affect its destruction capabilities by testing their method on unexploded ordnance and other explosives.
Source: “Numerical and experimental study on forming characteristics of jet from nylon-water composite liner and its penetration performance on steel targets,” by Ning Du, Tianchen Yu, and Mingran Pan, Journal of Applied Physics (2026). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0315328 .
