Introduction to Explosive Reactive Armour

About the book

This monograph describes the basic functioning of Explosive Reactive Armour (ERA) and the fundamentals of explosion dynamics and shock wave which are relevant and necessary to understand the basic mechanism of ERA. The main aim of this monograph is to make available all the important topics of explosion dynamics at one place to save time and effort for new scientists entering armament research and also for those who are already working in this field.

This monograph also aims at creating a deep understanding of explosion dynamics among scientists in armament research. To achieve this aim, all relevant fundamentals of explosion dynamics are given with detailed descriptions. Special attention is given to provide detailed derivations of theoretical relations so that the reader gets a clear understanding of the derivations and the assumptions involved in them. All relations have been derived by starting from fundamental laws such as conservation of mass, momentum and energy, and without omitting steps in these derivations.

About the Author

Dr Harpal Singh Yadav obtained his MSc degree in Physics from Agra university in 1962 and PhD in Shock Wave Physics from Punjab University in 1984. He served as Scientist G at the High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL) in Pune till 2001. Before joining HEMRL, he worked at Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory (TBRL) in Chandigarh. In 34 years of his service in Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), he did extensive research in areas such as shock waves, explosion dynamics, shaped charge jet penetration, explosive reactive armour and various other applications of shock waves like compaction of super conducting powders and cladding of dissimilar metals. He has published about 55 papers in national and international journals. He has also received numerous awards for his work including DRDO Technology Award in 2000 for the development of Advanced Explosive Reactive Armour. Over the course of his career, he has been invited to deliver lectures on shock wave physics at various institutes including a series of lectures at California Institute of Technology, USA.