Formation of a bore-center annular shaped charge and its penetration into steel targets

•A bore-center annular shaped charge was proposed and validated to improve the penetration diameter and depth of the annular shaped charge on hard targets.•An X-ray experiment was conducted to validate the reliability of numerical results.•The influence of liner configurations on radial and axial velocity of bore-center annular shaped charges was investigated.•The penetrating performance of the different bore-center annular shaped charges were evaluated in terms of size of penetration hole diameter and depth.