The Effect of Metal Temper on Explosively-Formed Fuse Performance

Abstract

A strong dependence of the dynamic resistivity of Explosively-Formed Fuses (EFF) on metal temper is reported. The explosively driven switch has been extremely effective in a wide range of large-scale experiments but good, predictive, computational models of its performance have proven elusive, possibly because the temper of the metal conductor has not been previously considered. Small-scale experiments were employed to study the effects of metal temper. It was found that the dynamic resistivity of the switch increased significantly with metal hardness; the dynamic resistivity of the hardest foils being approximately three times that of the dead-soft material. These results suggest that metal fracture is an important aspect of the EFF behavior.