OBLIQUE PENETRATION OF A RIGID PROJECTILE INTO AN ELASTIC-PLASTIC TARGET

The main objective of the present work is to develop an approximate so lution of the problem of oblique penetration of a rigid projectile int o an elastic-plastic target of finite thickness. This is accomplished by generalizing the work on normal penetration reported in [1]. Here, an irrotational isochoric velocity held is considered that consists of three parts, each of which together satisfy the condition of impenetr ability at the projectile's surface. The first part is associated with the longitudinal motion of the projectile, the second part with the t ransverse motion, and the third part with the projectile rotation in t he plane defined by the initial longitudinal projectile velocity and t he normal to the target surface. The target material is assumed to be incompressible and the target region is subdivided into an elastic reg ion ahead of the projectile, and a rigid-plastic region near the proje ctile. Using the above potential velocity field, inertia effects are i ncluded and the linear momentum equation is solved exactly in the elas tic region. In the plastic region, the linear momentum equation is int egrated numerically along the instantaneous streamlines to determine t he pressure field on the projectile surface. Then the decelerating for ce and moment applied to the projectile are solved numerically. The mo del developed here predicts the residual velocity, the ballistic limit , as well as the residual angle of obliquity. Moreover, this model is able to describe the phenomenon of ricochet. It is shown that the agre ement of the theory with experiments is good even though no adjustable parameters are used. Also, a user-friendly computer program has been developed that is available for distribution along with a Users' Manua l. (C) 1997 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.