Reactive armor technology

[Lunatik]

As you may know, explosive reactive armor has many different variants like self-limiting explosive reactive armour (SLERA), non-energetic reactive armour (NERA), non-explosive reactive armour (NxRA), and electric reactive armour.

Out of these, the one type that interests me the most is the electric reactive armor. According to sources, it is still under development, but the concept is very intriguing and may even mean "invincible tanks".

A new technology called electric reactive armour (also known as electromagnetic reactive armour, or colloquially as electric armour) is in development. This armour is made up of two or more conductive plates separated by some space or by an insulating material, creating a high-power capacitor. In operation, a high-voltage power source charges the armour. When an incoming body penetrates the plates, it closes the circuit to discharge the capacitor, dumping a great deal of energy into the penetrator, which may vaporize it or even turn it into a plasma, significantly diffusing the attack. It is not public knowledge whether this is supposed to function against both kinetic energy penetrators and shaped charge jets, or only the latter. This technology has not yet been introduced on any known operational platform.

Is this even a realistic concept? I mean is it possible to vaporize such a high velocity metal rod under tremendous pressure so quickly? When it is fielded, what kind of power source can a tank use to generate so much current and power that sort of armor?

 

[Rorke]

Doesnt matter, as long as it can significantly affect the physical constitution of the round its viable however the amount of energy to do it is so obscene it stinks of science fiction or future warrioresque lack of realism.

 

[SHERMAN]

may even mean "invincible tanks

Ther is never an invincible anything

 

[Lunatik]

Oh yeah? You obviously haven't heard about the Death Star...

No, wait... :smil:

 

[A Can of Man]

You'd probably need like a nuclear reactor or something.

 

[HokieMSG]

An Engineers evaluation

Without getting into too much detail of the physics of eletro reactive armor...
Problems from an Engineering Point of View:
1. You will need a huge power source to maintain the large potential between the plates. KW to MW range.
2. You won't be able to have all of them in parallel because the first hit will short the entire bank. This will require special hardware or power sources for each of the plate sets.
3. The potential will have to be high because a significant current will have to be discharged, enough to vaporize a significant portion of the penetrator. Current on the order of kiloamps if not megaamps
4. This will have to be an active system owing to capacitor leakage. Charge time will likely be on the order of minutes.
5. System life won't be that good owing to the potentials needed to make the system work. This will cause degredation of the dielectric material which will require frequent replacement.
6. Explosive effects of gassification of penetrator may damage adjacent panels.

Positives
1. Power requirements can solve domestic energy crisis here at home.
2. No nightlights/headlights needed due to crew glowing in the dark.
3. Tank crews can moonlight catching ghosts.

 

[Lunatik]

It's a crazy idea but I don't think it'd glow. No matter how loaded a capacitor is, it's going to be protected by a second layer of armor (for small arms fire) and of course an insulating layer, topped with regular paint/camo. Heat generated due to capacitor resistance may be a problem and it'd have to be dumped somewhere safely. Or the system can employ supercooled conductors, and the inner armor can be kept at a super cold temperature. This would also help with dumping the current onto the projectile faster and frying it instantly.

 

[Sven Ortmann]

Heat generated due to capacitor resistance may be a problem ...

There's not much electric flow most of the time - a capacitator are two plates with maximized surface that store excess electrons on one part's surface and has unusually few electrons on the other's surface. There's a strong and instant current once both get connected (and when charging), but not all the time.

 

[Sven Ortmann]

Without getting into too much detail of the physics of eletro reactive armor...
Problems from an Engineering Point of View:
... 3. The potential will have to be high because a significant current will have to be discharged, enough to vaporize a significant portion of the penetrator. Current on the order of kiloamps if not megaamps
... 6. Explosive effects of gassification of penetrator may damage adjacent panels. ...

It doesn't work by vaporization. The important effect is electro-magnetic. There were several statements about electric armor that indicated that a normal car electric system would be up to the task - the whole electric armor thing was apparently no more extreme than to start a piston engine.

 

[HokieMSG]

It doesn't work by vaporization. The important effect is electro-magnetic. There were several statements about electric armor that indicated that a normal car electric system would be up to the task - the whole electric armor thing was apparently no more extreme than to start a piston engine.

Intersting. Not sure how it would work without dumping the stored current into the penetrator in the hopes that the high current would vaporize the penetrator.

This is explained mathematically by Lorentz' Law.

 

[Pale Rider]

As you may know, explosive reactive armor has many different variants like self-limiting explosive reactive armour (SLERA), non-energetic reactive armour (NERA), non-explosive reactive armour (NxRA), and electric reactive armour.

Out of these, the one type that interests me the most is the electric reactive armor. According to sources, it is still under development, but the concept is very intriguing and may even mean "invincible tanks".



Is this even a realistic concept? I mean is it possible to vaporize such a high velocity metal rod under tremendous pressure so quickly? When it is fielded, what kind of power source can a tank use to generate so much current and power that sort of armor?

The technology is there but with one major issue, the size of the conductors needed to make it work.

 

[uknighter]

This was originally tested against RPG type shape war heads and was used to break up the coherent jet that is used to burn through the armor....it was successful in the testing but I dont know if was practicle becuase of other reasons. I know there are other components in the armor that would need to be addressed to stop a long rod but this gets into more classified side

 

[Aryan_M]

it seems that i got a very bad luck about this.
it was about 2 months that i was reserching about somethings about capasitors and i got some interesting ideas and one of them was useing capacitor as an armour for tanks vehicles and also troops.
so i know how does electro magnetic armor work.
unfurtunatly i thought im the first one who was making such thing.
i had idea of 2 kinds of electro magnetic armor but i wont tell the other one because its still my secret.
my reserchs is not finished yet so i dont know all about a useful EM armor.
from my idea and simple early calculations this armor is a multilayer capacitor with low capacity and high voltage that can be made of different material like aluminium or steel and there should be a dielectic that i decided to put ceramic because of its very high dielectric constant also it mades a composite of hard metal and ceramic that helps attacking force to spread.
when somthing hits the capacitor , its layers may make short circuit.
thanks to low resistance of layers there would be a very high current in that short circuit part and it makes a magnetic fild that works exactly like railgun that makes a repulsive force between capacitors layers and makes layers to explode very fast exactly like explosive armors.
the problem hear is that capacitors store a few amount of energy.
hear we have a ceramic multilayer cap that saves less energy. an anti tank misile or rpg has something about 1-20 mega joule energy or more, that should get decaded. but we dont need to decade all of it. some of that energy makes work to change the shape of armor and making heat.
i calculated that if we could design and make it well , a cap armor (30*40*10)cm would have between 0.5-3mega joule energy (equal amount of tnt makes about 50mega joule energy) and i think thats enough for one shut. we can parallel caps together or use bigger caps or use the expensive technology of ultra capacitor to keep more energy.
the difference is that electromagnetic armor responds very faster than explosive armor. also in short circuit a very high temp would apear that would make plasma and this tempreture can make an explosion out of metal and ceramic. this explosion is not very effective but i dont know what does the plasma do.
atlast i dont agree that this armor is more efficient than explosive armor but i wanted to do something different with these kinds of armor.
this idea came to my mind when i tried to explode a large electrolite capacitor.