Sabot Separaiton

Sabot Separation

As the sabot leaves the barrel, it will need to separate itself from the specimen by splitting into two halves. The two halves would be able to keep the projectile pinched inside the barrel and travel with the projectile held for the length of the internal barrel combustion. When the sabot reaches the end of the barrel, the force of the barrel is no longer forcing the two halves together, allowing the drag force to peel the two halves away from each other and preventing the polypropluex from interfering with the experiment . The execution of this was much more difficult than anticipated.

The seperation of the Sabot mid-flight

The sabot can not simply be cut in half. The kerf of the blade on a part only half an inch would not allow the sides to meet again. This would be disastrous since one of the main requirements of the sabot was to create a gas seal and trap the exploding gases. The method of creating the part was to use 2 full sabots to create one split sabot. Using a milling machine and a temporary hole for the sabot to plug into, the sabot was faced down to the mid-line. This left an exact half that could be paired with another in order to create the part.

This method, although seems like a solution to the problem, may have some problems in the design. There is a bit of concern on the ability of the split sabot’s ability to form a sufficient gas seal along the length of the barrel. The team is not educated in ballistics but have confidence in the design after talking with the sponsor. To ensure success of the system even if the split sabot fails, two complete sabots remained with the rest.

If the split sabot does not succeed, other methods of machining will need to be addressed. The way in which the insert was created could be an option. The insert was cut before turning down to the correct diameter and then turned down together. This could be difficult because alignment pins would not be an option for the size and material of the sabot; however, the two halves would be perfect for one another and would have to be stored as pairs.

Complete sabot halves and fulls