Damage behavior of the KKV direct hit against fluid-filled submunition payload

The damage effects of fluid-filled submunition payload impacted by the kinetic kill vehicle (KKV) are investigated by simulations and ground-based experiments. Numerical simulations showed that the damage level and number of submunitions were significantly influenced by the diameter of the KKV compared with its length. Based on that, a high velocity penetrator formed by shaped charge explosion was used to simulate the direct hit experiment of a KKV impacting submunition payload. Experimental results demonstrated that the damage modes of submunitions mainly included the slight damage, perforation and total smash, showing a good agreement with the simulations. To understand the multiple damage modes of submunitions, the damage behavior of the submunitions in direct hit process were analyzed based on the AUTODYN-3D code. Numerical results presented that increased KKV diameter can increase the crater diameter and expand the damage volume, which will achieve a higher direct hit lethality. Further analysis indicated that there were other mechanical behaviors can enhance the damage to submunitions not lying in the KKV flight path, such as secondary debris kill, neighboring submunitions collision with each other, and high-speed fluid injection effect.