Characteristics And Development Of Composite Material Sabot

 

Recently, a model of lightweight cartridge case developed by Northern Changlong has adopted a new composite material structure design and process technology. The strength index of the developed carbon fiber composite cartridge case has met the requirements, and functional testing has begun.

 

With the improvement of armor protection level, the demand for improving the power of large-caliber armor-piercing shells is also increasing. Among them, the sabot, as one of the components of the projectile, mainly plays the role of ensuring the normal operation of the projectile in the barrel, ensuring the sealing of the propellant gas during operation, and improving the ballistic flight stability of the projectile.

 

New Material Sabot

The sabot is a negative mass, so its weight should be reduced as much as possible. Traditional metal materials such as aluminum alloy sabots can no longer meet the requirements of modern weapons. At present, in addition to magnesium alloys, fiber-reinforced resin-based materials are also more suitable options for lightweight materials.

 

The composite here is mainly a composite of carbon fiber and epoxy resin, and unidirectional carbon fiber reinforced epoxy prepreg is selected. While reducing the negative mass, the initial velocity is increased. The weight of the composite bullet is about 30% lighter than the aluminum bullet currently used. The initial velocity of the kinetic projectile using the composite bullet is about 63m/s higher than that of the aluminum bullet.

Production Process Exploration

 

There are related papers on the use of vacuum assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM) process to produce bullet trays abroad.

1. Prepare a variety of fiber mats with various orientation properties and forms by cutting fabric mats;
2. Form a preformed fabric object by laminating multiple fiber mats and splicing them with reinforcement materials;
3. Form a composite material by inserting the preformed fabric object into a vacuum assisted resin transfer molding device to inject resin into the preformed fabric object;
4. The formed composite material is machined to form fragments having a size corresponding to one-third of the fragments;
5. Repeat the above steps twice to form the second and third pieces of the bullet;
6. Then combine these three pieces together to form a final bullet tray.

 

During the Russian-Ukrainian war, a large number of US military M829 long-rod sub-caliber tail-stabilized discarding sabot depleted uranium armor-piercing projectiles were transported to the front line, causing incalculable losses. With the independent research and development and design of composite material sabots by domestic enterprises, the relevant gap is expected to be filled.