Effect of strength and ductility on deformation and fracture of three kinds of aluminum alloys during Taylor tests

• Deformation and fracture modes of projectiles of various materials are obtained.
• The effect of velocity on deformation and fracture modes are summed.
• Velocity range of each mode was identified for every kind of projectile.
• Fracture mechanism was revealed by SEM observation.

The mechanical property of projectile material, especially the strength and ductility, will greatly affect the deformation and damage of a kinetic energy projectile in the process of penetration. This paper presents a comparison methodology concerning the deformation and fracture behavior of kinetic energy projectiles with three kinds of strength and ductility manufactured from 1100, 6061 and 2A12 aluminum alloy bars. In the experiments, flat-nosed projectiles were fired using a two-stage light gas gun against hard steel plates within the velocity range of 150–600 m/s. Experimental results showed that there are different deformation and fracture modes for the three kinds of projectiles within different velocity ranges. With the increasing of impact velocity, deformation and fracture modes for each kind of projectile are listed as follows, respectively: mushrooming, tensile splitting and sunflower-like petalling for 1100 projectiles with high ductility; mushrooming, shear cracking, shear petalling and petals falling off for 6061 projectiles with medium ductility; mushrooming, shearing cracking and fragmentation for 2A12 projectiles with low ductility. In order to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the influence of strength and ductility on material fracture mechanism, microscopic observations of typical fracture surfaces were conducted by a scanning electron microscope (SEM).

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