The influence of aerodynamic heating on the terminal ballistic performance of scale size ke projectiles

✍ Scribed by I.G. Cullis; N.J. Lynch

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 703 KB
• Volume: 20
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0734-743X
• DOI: 10.1016/s0734-743x(97)87492-1

✦ Synopsis

This paper presents small scale reverse ballistic experiments and hydrocode simulations to estimate the influence of aerodynamic heating on the terminal ballistic performance of a hypervelocity kinetic energy projectile. A 3mm diameter, L/D 10 tungsten alloy projectile was heated to temperatures up to 1000"C and data was obtained for two designs of target fired from a 40ram smooth bore powder gun at 1800m/s. The results show penetration at normal obliquity to be only marginally affected by temperature changes, whereas for 45 obliquity there was a more pronounced reduction in penetration. Computational analysis of the experiments, made using the GRIM hydrocode with a modified Armstrong-Zerilli material model for the tungsten alloy, identified the controlling physics. In particular the role of secondary penetration was shown to a major factor in understanding the experiments. GRIM was then used to predict the penetration performance at velocities between 2.3 and 3 Km/s.