Experimental impact study using an explosive driven projectile accelerator and numerical simulation

Abstract This paper presents a projectile impact experiment using a compact accelerator driven directly by explosives, and a numerical simulation of the impact. The compact projectile accelerator has been developed to evaluate the perforation resistance of structural materials. Projectile shooting tests were conducted and the relationship between the explosive weight and the injected projectile velocity was obtained. A series of impact tests on the targets, with varying projectile velocity, was examined using the developed accelerator. The projectile was made of SNCM (nickel–chromium–molybdenum special steel of the Japanese Industrial Standard) and the targets were aluminum 5052S alloy plates. The projectile track and the impact process on the targets were observed with a SHIMAZU HPV-1 high-speed video camera and the velocity of the projectile and interactive behavior were evaluated. A numerical simulation study was conducted using the parallel version of the non-linear finite element code of LS-DYNA to follow the impact experiments and determine the ballistic limit of the projectile for the targets.