Computational Model for Armor Penetration
Abstract
Results are reported from the first year of a three-year joint BRL(AMMRC/SRI program to develop a computational capability to predict the behind-the-armor fragment environment for spaced armor attacked by long rod penetrators. The materials chosen for study were depleted uranium- and tungsten- alloy penetrators, rolled homogeneous armor, and an electroslag-remelt-treated steel armor. Phenomenology experiments indicated that adiabatic shear banding is the dominant microstructural failure mode underlying target plugging and fragmentation as well as penetrator nose erosion. A previously developed computational model for shear banding was improved, calibrated with dynamic material property experimental data, and applied to preliminary computational simulations of normal impact experiments. In addition, an approximate formula was developed to estimate the critical strain for onset of shear banding. Promising agreement between these preliminary computations and experimental observations was obtained. Information was also obtained on tensile failure of rolled homogeneous armor by ductile void activity, and a method for generating high strain rate plastic yield information was developed. Future work will extend this approach to oblique impacts, multiple plates, and, if the results of ongoing phenomenology experiments establish their importance, to other microstructural damage modes.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 1987
- Accession Number
- ADA193196
Entities
People
- D. A. Shockey
- D. C. Erlich
- L. Seaman
Organizations
- SRI International