Simulation of Ballistic Impact of a Tungsten Carbide Sphere on a Confined Silicon Carbide Target

The present investigation is a continuation of our previous study on the ability of the phenomenological Johnson-Holmquist model to predict the observed damage induced by spheres of tungsten carbide (WC) striking confined cylinders of silicon carbide (SiC) at velocities between 63 m/s to 500 m/s. In this study, the WC was modeled using the Johnson-Cook plasticity model along with a principal stress failure criterion calibrated with recently available experimental data. Johnson-Holmquist model parameters along with modifications incorporated to brittle damage models included in AUTODYN tensile crack softening and stochastic failure were varied to study their influence on the simulated crack patterns. Comparisons with the cracking from the simulations and the experimentally observed damage are described and ongoing efforts to improve the numerical results are discussed.
Presented at the International Symposium on Ballistics (23rd), held in Tarragona, Spain, on 16-20 Apr 2007. Published in the proceedings of the conference, v2 p1039-1047, 2008. The original document contains color images.