Effect of projectile diameter on ballistic resistance and failure mechanism of single and layered aluminum plates

• Effect of projectile diameter is studied on ballistic limit of thin aluminum plates.
• Ballistic limit has been found to increase with increase in projectile diameter.
• Monolithic target offered better resistance than layered target.
• Behavior of target remained same against rigid and deformable projectile.

Finite element analysis has been carried out to study the effect of diameter of ogive nosed projectile on the ballistic resistance of 1 mm thick monolithic and 0.5 mm thick double-layered in contact plates of 1100-H12 aluminum alloy. The size of the projectile was varied by varying its shank diameter as 15, 19 and 24 mm, keeping the length constant. Thus, the length to diameter ratio varied as 2, 2.6 and 3.3. The ABAQUS/Explicit finite element code in conjunction with Johnson–Cook elasto-viscoplastic material model was employed to perform the simulation study. The numerical results were compared with available experiments. The ballistic resistance has been found to increase with increase in the projectile diameter. For a given diameter, the monolithic target has been found to offer better resistance. However, the influence of target configuration was dominant against the larger projectile diameter. The projectile was considered rigid and deformable to study its influence on the failure mechanism and ballistic limit. Friction effect between the projectile and target was also studied and its influence thereon the ballistic performance is discussed.