A new similarity law for penetration of steel plates by blunt projectiles

ABSTRACT

The structural impact similarity laws have corrected the distortion caused by the strain-rate effect and the material property differences mostly by changing the impact velocity. However, in many practical environments, the velocity of the projectile cannot be used as an initial condition for modification. This paper develops a new similarity framework that takes into account the material property differences in the penetration problem and corrects the similarity distortion between scaled models and prototypes by changing the plate thickness. The method is preliminarily proved feasible by an analytical model of dimensionless critical impact energy under penetration. In addition, a series of numerical simulations of blunt projectiles striking steel plates are carried out. The results show that differences in similar distortions between different scaled models with different materials can all be compensated by a dimensionless number based on the thickness of the target plate.

KEYWORDS:

• Similarity
• projectile penetration
• strain-rate effect
• material distortion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52001091).