A Theoretical Study on the Penetration of Rocks Struck by Rigid Projectiles

Rocks as natural building materials have been widely used in protective engineering and military fortification/installations. Hence, it is of great significance to carry out studies on the penetration of rock targets by projectiles. This paper contains two parts. The first part is an overview of the previous work with emphasis being placed on the formulas for the depth of penetration; the second part is a further development of the penetration model proposed by Wen by modifying the shear strength (Y) which has been found to be a function of both projectile diameter and target unconfined compressive strength based on the experimental observations. It is shown that the model correlates well with the penetration data for the limestone targets impacted by ogival-nosed projectiles.