Numerical Simulation of Thin Steel Target Perforated by Conical-Nosed Projectile with Yaw Angle

Numerical simulations are conducted for perforation of conical projectile impacting on thin steel target with various yaw angles to investigate the influence of yaw angle. The finite element models of conical projectile impacting on thin steel target with yaw angle varying from 2° to 10° are established with the non-linear finite element code ANSYS/LS-DYNA. After the reliability of numerical simulations is verified, numerical simulations of conical projectile impacting on thin steel target with different yaw angles and initial velocities are carried out. A four-step model to analyze the process of projectile’s deflection is addressed by comparing the process of target’s failure and projectile’s deflection. At last, we discuss the projectile’s trajectory angel deflection and angular velocity through the validated numerical analysis. The results show that the failure of asymmetric petalling occurs when a thin plate is impacted by conical-nosed projectile with yaw angle. With the increase of the yaw angle and the decrease of initial velocity, the deflection of the trajectory will be more obvious; the deflection change of projectile relates to the initial velocity; the deflection angle shows a trend of increasing first and subsequently decreasing when the initial impact velocity is relatively high (greater than about 1.4 times the ballistic limit). When the projectile moves out of target, the angular velocity rises with the increase of the yaw angle, but it increases reversely and then reduces with the increase of initial velocity.