EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE BEHAVIOR OF ALUMINIUM PLATES UPON BALLISTIC IMPACT

Abstract

A study was conducted to investigate the performance of thin aluminum plates under ballistic impact using experimental and numerical approaches. The projectile mass, nose shape, and plate thickness were found to have an important effect on penetration. The investigations dealt with the behavior of 1-mm-thick commercial grade aluminum plates subject to ballistic impact by projectiles of four different nose shapes. An advanced ballistic impact testing facility with gas gun projectile launcher and a high speed camera was used for the experiments. The projectile was fired just above the ballistic limit and its impact and residual velocity were recorded. Failure of the target plate during the projectile penetration process was captured using a high-speed camera. The computed residual velocity was compared with the corresponding test residual velocity and the target plate failure pattern was examined for all the test cases, using a general explicit non-linear finite element solver (LS-DYNA)-based simulation procedure.