An experimental technique for studying the behavior of high-strength steel under static punching

Abstract

High-strength steels are widely used in the defense and civil industries. During operation, high-strength and armored steels are subjected to extreme static and dynamic loads. Material specimens or full-scale structures testing at such loads is a very complex and expensive process. Therefore, numerical calculation methods are commonly used to assess their strength. To determine the parameters of these models as an express method, it is reasonable to use tests that are similar in nature of the loading, deformation, and failure to full-scale or standard ones, but which are cheaper and easier to perform in the laboratory conditions. One of the key properties of high-strength steels is their resistance to penetration by various types of armor-piercing strikers. To simplify the testing procedure and minimize materials consumption, static and dynamic punching methods have been developed. A set of experimental and numerical investigations on the deformation of various specimens from high-strength steels has been made under static and dynamic load conditions, in particular, plate specimens punching (punches of different shapes) by the G. S. Pisarenko Institute for Problems of Strength of the NAS of Ukraine. This paper presents the experimental procedure and equipment for the investigation of the materials’ behavior under static punching. High-strength steel plate specimens have been tested on an upgraded servohydraulic machine Instron 8802 using three types of punches: flat, spherical, and conical. It is established that the diagram describing the spherical punching is the most informative, while the diagram showing the conical punching is less informative. The nature of the specimen fracture is consistent with the results of field tests in the barrier penetration by armor-piercing strikers. The obtained results are in good agreement with the known literature data and can be used to validate the results obtained by numerical simulations.