High velocity penetration/perforation using coupled smooth particle hydrodynamics-finite element method

Finite element method (FEM) suffers from a serious mesh distortion problem when used for high velocity impact analyses. The smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method is appropriate for this class of problems involving severe damages but at considerable computational cost. It is beneficial if the latter is adopted only in severely distorted regions and FEM further away. The coupled smooth particle hydrodynamics - finite element method (SFM) has been adopted in a commercial hydrocode LS-DYNA to study the perforation of Weldox 460E steel and AA5083-H116 aluminum plates with varying thicknesses and various projectile nose geometries including blunt, conical and ogival noses. Effects of the SPH domain size and particle density are studied considering the friction effect between the projectile and the target materials. The simulated residual velocities and the ballistic limit velocities from the SFM agree well with the published experimental data. The study shows that SFM is able to emulate the same failure mechanisms of the steel and aluminum plates as observed in various experimental investigations for initial impact velocity of 170 m/s and higher.