Warhead booster explosive lens
AssigneeRaytheon Company
InventorsE. Russ Althof, William R. Hawkins, Henri Y. Kim
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A cost-effective solution is proposed to improve explosive transfer between booster and warhead that is compatible with the existing base of general purpose warheads and flexible to work with new warhead configurations. A booster lens is placed in the fuze well that concentrates the pressure wave to penetrate the fuze well with a peak pressure that exceeds the detonation threshold and detonate the warhead explosive. The booster lens can be configured to control the direction of the concentrated lobe to penetrate the fuze well where the barriers are low.
Claims9
A munition, comprising:
- a warhead including a fuze well and a warhead explosive around the fuze well;
- a booster including a booster explosive placed inside the fuze well, said fuze well providing a barrier between the booster explosive and warhead explosive;
- a fuze behind the booster inside the fuze well that detonates the booster explosive creating a pressure wave with a peak pressure, said pressure wave having a forward axial component and a radial component;
- and
- a booster lens having a surface, said booster lens positioned in the fuze well to re-direct a portion of the radial component of the pressure wave off of the lens surface in the axial direction to concentrate the pressure wave into a lobe in a predetermined direction with increased peak pressure to penetrate the barrier provided by the fuze well and directly detonate the warhead explosive approximately axially from the booster.
A fuze assembly for use in a fuze well of a warhead including a warhead explosive around the fuze well, comprising:
- a booster including a booster explosive;
- a fuze configured to detonate the booster explosive to create a pressure wave having a forward axial component and a radial component;
- and
- a booster lens having a surface configured to re-direct a portion of the radial component of the pressure wave off of the lens surface in the axial direction to concentrate the pressure wave into a lobe with increased peak pressure to penetrate the fuze well and directly detonate the warhead approximately axially from the booster.
A booster for use with a fuze in a warhead, comprising:
- a housing;
- an explosive pellet placed inside the housing;
- and
- a lens formed into the walls of the housing having a surface configured to re-direct and -concentrate a portion of a radial component of a pressure wave caused by the detonation of the explosive pellet off of the lens surface in the axial direction into a lobe in a predetermined direction with increased pressure to penetrate and directly detonate the warhead approximately axially from the booster.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.