Geometry optimization of a double-layered inertial reactive armor configured with rotating discs

Bekzat Ajan, Dichuan Zhang, Christos Spitas, Elias Abou Fakhr, Dongming Wei

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

An innovative inertial reactive armor is being developed through a multi-discipline project. Unlike the well-known explosive or non-explosive reactive armour that uses high-energy explosives or bulging effect, the proposed inertial reactive armour uses active disc elements that is set to rotate rapidly upon impact to effectively deflect and disrupt shaped charges and kinetic energy penetrators. The effectiveness of the proposed armour highly depends on the tangential velocity of the impact point on the rotating disc. However, for a single layer armour with an array of high-speed rotating discs, the tangential velocity is relatively low near the center of the disc and is not available between the gap of the discs. Therefore, it is necessary to configure the armor with double layers to increase the tangential velocity at the point of impact. This paper explores a multi-objective geometry design optimization for the double-layered armor using Nelder-Mead optimization algorithm and integration tools of the python programming language. The optimization objectives include maximizing both average tangential velocity and high tangential velocity areas and minimizing low tangential velocity area. The design parameters include the relative position (translation and rotation) of the disc element between two armor layers. The optimized design results in a significant increase of the average tangential velocity (38%), increase of the high tangential velocity area (71.3%), and decrease of the low tangential velocity area (86.2%) as comparing to the single layer armor.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)309-325
Number of pages17
JournalAdvances in Computational Design
Volume8
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2023

Keywords

  • double-layered armor
  • geometry design
  • inertial reactive armor
  • multi-objective optimization

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computational Mechanics
  • Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design
  • Computational Mathematics

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