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Sorry to answer my own post, but I watched it again and picked up on the key idea at 2:09. The inverted apex of the cone drives into the steel, pushing the ste
by daenz 4y ago
Sorry to answer my own post, but I watched it again and picked up on the key idea at 2:09.
The inverted apex of the cone drives into the steel, pushing the steel aside, but then the apex opens up and flows back along the outside of itself. In other words, any given part of this copper "wire" interacts with the steel only long enough to push it open, then it is replaced by new copper.
From this explanation, it sounds like the tunnel that has been "bore" through the steel would be completely coated from start to finish by the inverted copper cone.
- lamontcg 4y agoThe mental image which is working well enough for me is a series of tightly packed bullets with each one digging the hole a little deeper than the last one. Of course the shaped charge isn't a gun though and the stream of copper doesn't travel for hundreds of meters/yards. If you need to stand off from the target you'd want to mount it as the payload of a rocket and fire towards thine enemies. EDIT: this is of course a better description: https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/bullets2-shaped-charge.htm https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/bu... So the rod is traveling so fast that it and the target act like liquids, even though it isn't molten.
- colechristensen 4y agoImagine a picture of the jet coming out of a black hole. Something very roughly similar is happening here. The shape of the cone as the detonation wave goes through the explosive forces copper into the center and the only (or lowest resistance) way out is a straight jet through the target material.