Thick plain concrete targets subjected to high speed penetration of 30CrMnSiNi2A steel projectiles: Tests and analyses

In this work, 2 sets of thick plain concrete target penetration tests are carried out with high strength steel alloy projectiles made of 30CrMnSiNi2A whereby the striking velocity ranges from 841 m/s to 1872 m/s. For test 1, 7 shots of ogival nose projectiles with 3.0 calibre radius head as well as 2 shots of double-ogival nose projectiles are comparatively conducted to study the effect of nose shape effect. We adopt 30-mm-diameter projectiles for test 2 to study the higher velocity penetration in concrete. Two penetration regimes including rigid projectile penetration and eroding projectile penetration are observed for this work which are divided by 1402 m/s striking velocity. The target impact surface damage indicates that the crater diameter maintains 0.804 m while the crater depth increases linearly with the striking velocity. Rigid penetration simulations for test 1 are then performed via the recently developed Lattice Discrete Particles Model (LDPM) which is featured with mesoscale constitutive laws governing the interaction between adjacent particles to account for cohesive fracture, strain hardening in compression and compaction due to pore collapse. The penetration numerical model is validated by matching the projectile deceleration curve of shot N1 and predicting the depth of penetration (DOP). By constant velocity penetration simulations, the target resistance R = 406 MPa (Forrestal et al. 2003) is achieved for concrete penetration test 1 scenario. Finally, the equivalent CRH value 3.8 is approximated for the double-ogival nose projectile in this study.