Ballistic impact of a spherical projectile to the aluminum plate Abaqus

Product Overview

In this example, we simulate the ballistic impact of a spherical projectile on an AA5083-H116 Aluminum plate using the Abaqus software.

The target is a 15 mm thick AA5083-H116 Aluminum plate, which is impacted by a 10 mm diameter spherical steel projectile. The projectile is modeled as a rigid body in the Abaqus simulation, while the Aluminum plate is modeled as a deformable body.

Johnson-Cook Damage Model

The Johnson-Cook damage model is used in Abaqus to simulate the damage and failure behavior of the AA5083-H116 Aluminum during the high-velocity impact. The model is suitable for impact problems involving large plastic deformation, high strain rates, and material failure.

In this simulation, the Johnson-Cook formulation is used to describe the plastic response and damage evolution of the Aluminum plate during the interaction with the spherical projectile. The material response accounts for the effects of plastic strain, strain rate, and temperature during the impact process.

Different Projectile Velocities

The ballistic impact problem is analyzed for different projectile velocities to investigate the effect of impact velocity on the response of the AA5083-H116 Aluminum plate.

Four impact velocities of 869, 995, 1166, and 1247 m/s are considered in the numerical analysis. The different impact cases are used to investigate the residual velocity of the projectile at different levels of impact velocity.

Residual Velocity

For the different impact velocities, the projectile velocity is obtained from the Abaqus results after penetration. The calculated residual velocities are then compared with the corresponding results reported in the reference research article.

Deformation and Damage

The ballistic impact process involves large deformation and strain in the Aluminum plate, together with fracture and thermal softening of the material. These effects become important as the spherical projectile penetrates the target at high velocity.

During the impact, ductile hole propagation develops in the Aluminum plate as the projectile penetrates through the target. Significant plastic deformation occurs around the impact region, while material near the projectile is displaced and damaged.

The impact also produces splashing of the target material around the impact region. According to the reference study, after the initial material splash, the diameter of the resulting perforation channel remains approximately equal to the diameter of the spherical projectile.

These deformation and damage mechanisms are important characteristics of the ballistic impact response and can be investigated using the three-dimensional Abaqus model.

Validation

This project has been validated, which means that the results obtained from the Abaqus software are similar to the results reported in the reference article.

In other words, this project is based on the reference research article.

What You Will Learn

• How to model a ballistic impact problem in Abaqus.
• How to model a spherical projectile as a rigid body.
• How to model an AA5083-H116 Aluminum plate.
• How to define a high-velocity impact analysis.
• How to use the Johnson-Cook damage model for material failure.
• How to analyze the model for different projectile velocities.
• How to obtain the residual velocity of the projectile.
• How to compare the numerical results with the reference article.
• How to validate the numerical model using the reference article.

Key Features

• Ballistic impact analysis.
• Spherical projectile modeling.
• Rigid projectile.
• AA5083-H116 Aluminum plate.
• Johnson-Cook damage model.
• High-velocity impact analysis.
• Analysis for different projectile velocities.
• Residual velocity calculation.
• Validation against the reference article.
• Complete Abaqus CAE file.
• Abaqus INP file.
• Excel file (Results).
• Reference research paper.
• Step-by-step video tutorial.

Reference

This project is based on the reference research article. The research paper is included with the project files and can be used to review the ballistic impact problem and the reported results.