Ballistic Impact Simulation of Alumina Using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) Method

This study investigated the ballistic performance of alumina 99.5% plate of 5 mm thickness against an Ogival projectile through numerical simulation. Due to the dynamic nature of the impact process, both the target and the projectile dispersed into several fragments. Carrying out the numerical simulation of the impact process using the conventional meshing technique can prove a difficult task. In this chapter, Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method was used in ANSYS-LS-DYNA® code to simulate the fragmentation and perforation of ceramic alumina (Al2O3) by steel 4340 projectile. Simulated results using SPH method are obtained for residual velocity and residual kinetic energy and compared with experimental studies and Finite-Element Model FEM. The alumina tile of 100 × 100 mm and thickness of 5 mm was hit with the projectile with velocities in the range of 94–275 m/s. A cylindrical projectile with an ogive nose of 10.9 mm in diameter and 52 mm in length was used. The simulation using SPH correctly predicted the fragmentation of both target and projectile and the values of residual velocity and kinetic energy were closer to the experimental results with all remaining parameters being constant. There was only minimal damage to the projectile tip as no backing plate was provided. Also, the smoothing length feature of the SPH has been explored and as the smoothing length parameter was increased, the predicted residual velocity of the projectile is found to be reduced by a small margin.