Effects of the Projectile Geometries on Normal and Oblique Penetration Using the Finite Cavity Pressure Method

Abstract

In this work, the penetration depth of a projectile with various geometries was analyzed using the cavity pressure method. The finite cavity method combines an analytical method and the finite element method and considers the deformation of the projectile only. This simulation method was implemented to ABAQUS/Explicit using user subroutine VDLOAD. The target material was 6061-T6511 aluminum material, and the projectile material was vacuum-arc-remelted (VAR) 4340 steel. In the analysis, the normal impact and the oblique impact with the angle of 30° were studied. First, the developed simulation model was verified using the previous experiments. With the developed finite element analysis with the cavity pressure method, the effect of projectile shape on penetration was investigated. The target geometry maximizes penetration depth was discussed. The angle of the nose affects mainly on the penetration characteristics. The projectile having an ogive nose with high caliber-radius-head (CRH) value shows the best penetration depth and the least plastic deformation in both the normal impact and the oblique impact.