Catastrophic Reaction of Compartmentalized Ammunition - Causes and Preventive Measures

While it is feasible to design a tank ammunition compartment which will survive the detonation of a single warhead, the design of a compartment which will survive the detonation of most or all of the warheads and which falls within the weight and space constraints imposed by the vehicle design is not currently possible the detonation of 40 warheads the planned complement will destroy compartment and fighting vehicle. In previous research 1 we have shown that catastrophic reaction of munitions can occur under conditions much less strenuous than those required for classical shock initiation, which has been studied extensively for bare charges. These catastrophic reactions play an extremely important role in determining munition vulnerability, and in the rapid propagation of explosion through stacks of munitions.