A computational study of the relations between material properties of long-rod penetrators and their ballistic performance

The paper summarizes a series of two-dimensional numerical simulations which were performed to study the effects of material properties on the terminal ballistics of long-rod penetrators. Our focus was on the properties of the rod material, unlike recent works which concentrated on a target’s properties. We varied almost all the relevant parameters within a large range of values in order to study the separate effects of each one. These parameters included: compressive and tensile strengths, elastic moduli, melting temperatures and the maximum equivalent plastic strain (failure strain) of the rod material. Most of the simulations were performed for an actual experiment with 300 mm tungsten-alloy long-rod, impacting a semi-infinite steel target. The simulations show that the mechanical and thermal softening mechanisms are the most dominant, as far as the depth of penetration is concerned. In contrast, the elastic moduli and spall strength have a negligible effect as far as penetration depth is concerned.