Safety Shield

Safety Shield

The current Taylor test uses a quarter inch thick aluminum box with Plexiglas windows as a shield against any ricochets. The Plexiglas windows are small and accurate to the viewing frame of the camera. As for the lasers, there is a small rectangular cut in the top of the box and a similar cut in the table to allow the lasers to pass through. One side of the box has a cut which allows the box to cover the gun tube. The external and terminal ballistics are enclosed by the Safety Box.

For our sake, the safety shield should enclose the exit of the gun tube, through the extrusion process, and up until the entrance of the soft catch. The distance from the muzzle to the extrusion device that will allow for the sphere and sabot to split apart is unknown. The distance between the exit of the extrusion device and the soft catch device that will allow for the full extrusion process to be recorded through failure is also unknown. Without knowing these distances, the external ballistic space is undefined, so the size of the box and position of the Plexiglas windows are also undefined. The position of the hole cut for the lasers are not defined either.

These values need to be determined through testing, so the Safety Shield was designed fairly oversized. The Plexiglas windows were lengthened to sixteen inches and the Shield was lengthened to three feet. The cut for the laser is very oversized also. This oversize design allows for a reasonable amount of play in the shields positioning, allowing the operator to adjust the external ballistic space in the experiment if necessary.

Dynamic Tensile Test without Safety Shield (Right) and with (Left)